Q: I would like information about Canada’s Dirty Tricks Gang.
A: The gang was a group of robbers who operated mainly in the Toronto area in the 1970s and early 1980s. Led by Richard Atkinson, the gang conducted hundreds of armed robberies at mainly banks and credit unions. At one time, Ontario’s attorney-general called them “the most sophisticated bank robbery gang in Ontario’s history.”
Perhaps the first sign that Atkinson would be a troublemaker occurred when he was young. His father owned a bar in a rough part of town, so he had a revolver to protect the cash he took home from the bar at nights.
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When he was only five years old, Atkinson found the gun and took it outside, where he thought it would be fun to shoot an apple off his brother’s head. He tried several times to shoot but could not figure out that the safety was on.
Before he could fire the gun his mother found them and stopped the action.
From the age of 10, Atkinson was in trouble with police for crimes such as petty thefts, but his criminal activities continued and got more serious, to the point where armed robbery was being committed. He was also a member of the Black Panthers.
The gang was highly organized and sophisticated. Members communicated via two-way radios during heists, targeting banks and jewelry stores. They had elaborate plans for evading police, which led to the Dirty Tricks name.
They would steal cars and place them along their escape route, setting them on fire to slow and distract the police. They also had shingles and garden hoses with nails through them in their getaway cars, which they’d throw out of the windows to flatten the tires of the pursuing police vehicles.
The gang routinely monitored the police radio frequencies using scanning equipment purchased with the stolen money, and ran surveillance operations on the police to better plan their robberies. On occasion, they would phone in a false report to the police as they were leaving the bank, alleging an officer had been shot in another location.
Atkinson was the main planner and co-ordinator, but seldom went inside a target robbery site. He preferred to prepare the caper, to the point of using makeup and disguises to hide the identity of the robbers who were inside the businesses.
He read books on military strategy, police tactics and psychology to assist in his planning.
In a recent interview, he said the “cat and mouse game” with the police provided excitement and was a main motivator for the crimes, more than the money. He said he did it because it was what he did best.
Despite the gang members being smart and articulate, things fell apart for them in the 1980s. In 1981, one member was killed in a police shoot-out in front of a jewelry store.
In 1986, the gang was robbing a bank, but the police had determined where they would be and captured them after a firefight. Atkinson received a 25-year prison sentence.
While in prison, he created and hosted a cable show about news in the penitentiary, interviewing many convicts. The show aired for six years in the Kingston, Ont., area.
He later was paroled and became a motivational speaker, urging others not to follow the life of crime that had landed him in jail for most of his adult life.
He recognized the errors of his earlier ways and urges at-risk youth not to follow in his footsteps.
Rick Danyliuk is a lawyer with McDougall Gauley LLP in Saskatoon.
