Fictitious crime lord lures confessions - or idle boasts?

Vancouver

Never mind that 'Mr Big', a supposedly all-powerful Canadian criminal mastermind, is a complete fiction. He has proven to be an effective weapon for police departments across the country, helping secure confessions from gullible crooks eager to impress such an important gangland figure.

Mr Big, who had previously featured in several cases, has popped up again in the Vancouver trial of Nathan Fry, a 20-year-old charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Adela Etibako, three of her children and the girlfriend of her teenage son were all sleeping when a fire ripped through the family's home on May 15, 2006. The city's police chief said that if it was arson, as suspected, it was one of the worst crimes committed in Vancouver.

Almost immediately after the fire was contained, investigators said they suspected it had been deliberately set.

But it wasn't until more than a year later that Fry was arrested and charged. Fry, who has pleaded not guilty, was a friend of Bolingo Etibako, Adela Etibako's teenage son. But the pair had a falling out. Bolingo was the only person to escape the fire, but he spent nearly three months in hospital recovering from his burns.

In the crown's opening statement against Fry, police were revealed to have used the so-called Mr Big sting operation to get their confession.

Fry had apparently revealed detailed knowledge of the fire set in the Etibakos' low-income townhouse in east Vancouver, prosecutor Kerr Clark said. 'He couldn't reveal these things without being involved in the crime,' Mr Clark told the jury. 'The theory of the crown in this case is that the accused, Mr Fry, deliberately poured gasoline into the family room.' Fry then lit the petrol, according to the prosecution.