Over the last few months, undercover operators posing as frontmen for a Mexican drug cartel set the bait for members of the notorious Red Scorpion and United Nations gangs.

They promised the Metro Vancouver gangsters access to 100 kilos of cocaine for $3 million. They asked for deposits of $100,000.

Separately and unbeknownst to each other, the rival gangs met their contacts in public places and secret spots. Some meetings were in private homes.

What neither gang knew was that their cartel contacts were not underworld, but undercover police officers with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU).

The dramatic arrests of five men Thursday — including the Red Scorpion’s Jarrod Bacon and the UN boss Doug Vanalstine — marked what police say is a successful conclusion to the investigation, dubbed E-Pintle.

Vancouver Police Insp. Brad Desmarais called the bust “a spectacular success in our struggle against the gangs in the Lower Mainland.”

Bacon, 26, and his co-accused, Scorpion associate Wayne Scott, 53, are charged with conspiracy to traffic in a controlled substance between Feb. 20 and Aug. 28, 2009. Vanalstine, 50, and his fellow UN gangsters, Daryl Johnson, 31, and Nicholas Wester, 30, face the same charge for the same time period. They are also charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking on Aug. 27, 2009 in Abbotsford.

A core team of 20 police officers worked on E-Pintle around the clock, from its inception last February through the peak summer months to the gunpoint takedowns in Abbotsford and Kelowna.

Other surveillance teams bolstered the team when needed, CFSEU spokesman Sgt. Bill Whalen said Friday.

They snapped photos of Bacon standing in front of a green pickup chatting with Scott, his girlfriend’s father and the grandfather of Bacon’s toddler. They captured images of Vanalstine sipping Tim Hortons coffee.

CFSEU head Supt. Doug Kiloh said the decision was made to target the RS and the UN because both groups “were involved in regional and inter-nations drug trafficking and the violence that accompanies it.”

“Despite previous arrests and ongoing trials, the UN gang and members of the Bacon group have continued to conduct criminal activity,” Kiloh said. “Mr. Vanalstine and all of these individuals, to support their business, are ready and willing to employ violence at a number of different locations through a number of different means.”

Three of the five were already facing criminal charges when the new indictment was sworn. Bacon was in the middle of a Surrey provincial court trial on 10 firearms counts. That trial, in which he and brother Jamie are challenging the admissibility of evidence, is set to resume Dec. 3.

Vanalstine is charged in Washington state on a series of drug-smuggling charges to which UN founder Clay Roueche has already pleaded guilty. He will be sentenced in December. The U.S. Attorney is seeking 30 years.

Johnson is out on bail in a trafficking case out of Summerland.

Neither Scott nor Wester has a record in B.C., though Wester was convicted in Spokane in November 2000 of importing marijuana into the U.S.

All made their first appearance in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday and have been remanded in custody to Dec. 3.

It appears that the rival gang members realized only Friday that they were charged in the same sting.

Whalen said the “most intense investigational component” of E-Pintle occurred in June, July and August.

“The meetings went on basically in two cities, Abbotsford and Kelowna,” Whalen said. “The meetings went from coffee shops to more discreet locations.”

The UN delivered the $100,000 down payment. The Red Scorpion group did not.

Kiloh said he couldn’t provide much detail of the evidence until it is heard in court.

“We do have surveillance. We do have direct conversation and we do have money that has been provided as a deposit for securing the drugs,” he said. “There was direct money purchase of cocaine and there was some request with respect to the individuals sending marijuana or being able to transport marijuana by varying methods into the United States.”

Kiloh said the reality for organized criminals is that they continue to ply their trade even when facing charges, and even when targeted by violence.

“When they come out of court, they look for more income. They do what they do and they continue to utilize criminal activity to support that,” Kiloh said. “The drugs were a means for us to get at them criminally, but clearly it is the threat to public safety, clearly it is the violence of these individuals that are of concern to the police.”

Article written by Kim Bolan of The Vancouver Sun