A look at Edmonton’s organized crime and gang landscape

The city of Edmonton skyline is shown on Wednesday, Feb.15, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

With police seeing a higher gang presence in the city, CTV News Edmonton sat down with Sgt. Ryan Ferry to get an idea of how the landscape has changed over the years.

Ferry, who is in charge of the organized crime branch intelligence hub with the Edmonton Police Service (EPS), estimates there are about 2,000 to 3,000 individuals participating in gangs and organized crime across the city and surrounding area, making up about three-dozen or so groups.

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He defines organized crime separately from gangs, which are typically neighbourhood-based and involve street-level violence, often using symbols to delineate themselves.

Organized crime, on the other hand, involves large-scale commodities trafficking and is more difficult to identify.

“Organized crime figures look like doctors and lawyers and people that exist within your neighbourhood that you would otherwise not be able to pick out of a lineup,” said Ferry.

While gangs are often associated with controlling territories or neighbourhoods, Ferry said there haven’t been any gang-controlled areas in the city for the last several decades, especially following the invention of what Ferry calls “dial-doping” in the 1990s and early aughts.

Essentially a pizza delivery service for illegal drugs, dial doping came about in Western Canada as a way to reduce contact between drug trafficking operations and users. Drivers are typically young, even in their teens, with clean driving records who would receive a lesser penalty if caught trafficking.

“Edmonton is set up where we’ve had pretty low population density. It’s hard to support a gang-controlled drug distribution centre to make it worth the jeopardy of having police be aware of your operations,” explained Ferry. “I think the climate has played a major role in that it’s hard to stand on a street corner and traffic drugs when you’re going to freeze to death.”

But turf-oriented gangs have been making a comeback over the last couple of years, said Ferry, particularly involving young members.

He said there are about a dozen youth gangs in the city, mostly in the north side with some in Edmonton’s south.

Members in these gangs are typically between the ages of 14 and 24, and are more concerned with clout than profit, said Ferry, which results in gunfire and targeted parading in each other’s territories.

“That’s a very, very dangerous powder keg where they’re seeking opportunities to show the other up,” said Ferry. “It’s a reputation-based system where they don’t care who is making more money or how the money is made … and that becomes dangerous for everybody that lives in those neighbourhoods.”

Several schools in the city have reached out to EPS about teen gang members making trouble for students, teachers and staff.

“We worry about that pretty commonly because that can be explosive as far as violence goes, and it’s very, very hard to control because they’re coming and going from places they live and grew up in and have a whole neighbourhood sheltering them,” said Ferry.

Downtown

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Edmonton’s core has seen a rise in homelessness and crime, furthered by street gangs preying on the inner-city’s most vulnerable.

“Downtown has been ground zero for gang presence to sell drugs and have direct control over who’s storing, distributing and who will be directly subjected to violence and intimidation if they speak out against that gang presence,” said Ferry.

One of the most noted street gangs in the city’s core is REDD Alert, which Ferry says started as a collective of “ex-gangsters” who tried to form an anti-crime rap group in the mid-90s called Red Edmontonians Doing Dirt.

Some of the members fell into old habits when opportunities to make money arose.

Years later, REDD Alert has seeped into correctional institutions, where police believe members are involved in targeted violence and paid protection, said Ferry.

Correctional institutions

“As long as there is organized crime and as long as there are end users, there is going to be drugs in prisons,” said Ferry. “Just like we have our own problems out here on the street and in the city, they have their own problems in institutions.”

He adds that incarceration is not the most effective means of policing in terms of gang suppression because organized crime is so prolific in institutions.

“They may get more exposure to their gang when they’re incarcerated,” said Ferry. “So the strategy for each and every one of these gangs is going to be tailored to what’s going to reduce the gang participation and have the maximized impact in that particular gang.”

With REDD Alert, EPS takes an “uplifting” approach, talking to family members about the gang affiliation and helping find supports and opportunities outside of that gang, said Ferry.

Highest commodities

Drugs, by and large, are the highest trafficked commodity in Edmonton and virtually anywhere due to the prohibited nature of illegal drugs as well as high addiction and user rates.

The most commonly seized drug in Edmonton, says Ferry, is cocaine.

“Edmonton has been a traditionally cocaine-heavy community for a variety of sociological reasons,” he said, adding that methamphetamine and opioids are close seconds.

And almost all of Edmonton’s large organized crime groups are participating in the illegal tobacco trade, as it sees high profit margins and relatively low penalties to other contraband.

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“When you start to get large-scale, organized crime inserting themselves into profitable markets and there’s competition, violence always follows,” said Ferry.

Other commodities include human trafficking in the form of sex trafficking and labour trafficking, as well as firearms and stolen vehicle trafficking.

Ferry added that it’s also becoming more common to see organized criminals participate in mortgage fraud.

Trends

While the lines are becoming more blurred, Ferry says most organized crime rings and gangs are still made up of young men with a shared culture, ethnicity or experience.

“We still have a very segregated organized crime and gang tableau,” he said. “There’s a commonality that brings them together.”

Ferry adds that immigration or refugee status does not cause or force gang participation, but changes who is eligible and vulnerable to participate in organized crime due to a person’s circumstances.

Historically, gang violence has been more concentrated to north and south sides of the city, but police are now seeing it trickle all over Edmonton.

“The conflicts that are following them around are now bleeding out into the overall community,” he said.

Edmonton is also seeing an increase in gang influence from other provinces out east.

In November, EPS charged several One Order Motorcycle Club (MC) members with offences related to organized crime, dismantling the group’s presence in the city.

The club is known to have chapters in Peel, Ont., Toronto and Halifax.

Seizures included 19 firearms, numerous prohibited weapons and replica firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, a pair of bullet-proof vests, 50,000 contraband cigarettes, $118,000 in cash, and a steroid manufacturing and pill pressing operation with more than 82,000 pills in Sherwood Park.

“This was the first iteration of the One Order MC-specific chapter here in Edmonton,” said Ferry. “And through that investigation, we saw a very close affiliation with the Hells Angels.

“The presence of that group and the attractiveness of Edmonton and drawing the One Order out here to try to establish a chapter is indicative of the type of interprovincial connections that land in Edmonton … that’s a pretty common trend we’re seeing.”

How does Edmonton stack up to other Canadian cities?

Relative to other Canadian cities, Ferry says there is a high gang presence in Edmonton.

About 25 per cent of homicides are directly attributable to organized crime in Canada. Ferry estimates about 50 per cent of all homicides in Edmonton are connected in some way, shape, or form to organized crime.

EPS said there were 10 shootings in November 2025, nine of which are believed to be targeted. There were no homicides, and three of the 10 shootings resulted in injury.

As of Nov. 30, there have been 129 reported shootings in Edmonton this year. There were 111 reported shootings within the same time frame in 2024.