CANADIAN police Monday arrested about a dozen suspected members of the Shower Posse in a set of raids on Toronto gangsters in which 78 people were arrested and near 20 guns, more than $30,000 cash, $10,000 in casino cheques, drugs, diamonds and body armour were seized.

A report in yesterdays online edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail said more than 1,000 police officers from several forces rounded up members of a crime network that allegedly extends from Windsor to Sault Sainte Marie, and even back to Caribbean islands.

According to the Globe and Mail, big fish suspects were held in the operation that concluded a nine-month investigation, titled Project Corral, triggered by a spate of shootings involving feuding gangsters in north-west Toronto.

Several weeks ago, three people including one with a cop killer handgun were arrested in the Dominican Republic preparing to ship more than 70 kilograms of cocaine to Toronto, the Globe and Mail reported police as saying.

According to the newspaper, police said the alleged Toronto members of the Shower Posse brokered the sale of drugs shipped through the Caribbean to feuding Toronto street gangs, notably the Five Point Generalz and the Falstaff Crips.

The police said their investigations led, ultimately, to the Shower Posse, a Jamaican gang formed in the 1980s with links to the ruling Jamaica Labour Party.

Two months ago, former Shower Posse boss Vivian Blake died at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston after suffering a heart attack. Blake, who had been ailing for some time, returned to Jamaica last year after spending eight years in a US prison. He was fingered as the mastermind behind the ruthless Shower Posse, which had established drug bases in more than 20 US cities, Canada and the United Kingdom and was reportedly responsible for more than 1,400 murders.

Yesterdays Globe and Mail story reported Staff Inspector Mike Earl as saying that the Shower Posse in Canada worked behind the scenes.

Theyre not there front and centre, but theyre organised and theyve been around a long time, Earl was reported as telling a news conference.

He said the Toronto Police Service has never been able to get at the local members of the Shower Posse as they have in the past 24 hours, even though the gang has been understood to have been operating in the city for years, the Globe and Mail reported, adding that Earl said he would not speak to how the members operated or how police cracked the network.

However, he did say, somebody who has been around for 30 years is a lot smarter than someone whos been around for two, the Globe and Mail report read.

No shots were fired during the round-ups, the newspaper said. It also reported the police as saying that two recent Toronto homicides are linked to the network cracked during the investigation. However, the cops didnt say if charges are pending.

Prosecutors plan to charge the most serious suspects as organised crime members, a designation that would mean stiff sentences if there are convictions, the Globe and Mail said, adding that some of the accused arrested in other cities, including Ottawa and Sault Sainte Marie, were being transported to Toronto.