Several young gangsters who Vancouver Police say were particularly violent are now facing 20 serious charges from conspiracy to commit murder to possession of prohibited firearms and conspiracy to commit arson.
The alleged leader of the group is Taqdir Gill, who is only 21. His “cell” was aligned with the Kang faction of the Brothers’ Keepers, but then switched to the rival United Nations gang. In fact, some in the Gill group were apparently hunting the Kangs when the VPD arrested them several months ago.
Gill was also targeted in a drive-by shooting outside his parents’ southeast Vancouver home last summer.
A violent Lower Mainland gang was contracting itself out to commit murders for larger, more-established organized crime groups, Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said Thursday.
But the “Gill group”, headed by 21-year-old Taqdir Gill, has now been dismantled after a months-long investigation that resulted in seven arrests and the seizure of four guns, Porteous said.
“Project Temper, a gang violence suppression operation, has resulted in the dismantling of the Gill group. This violent crime group was comprised of several individuals,” Porteous told reporters. “The VPD is committed to aggressively targeting people who pose the most risk to our communities.”
Gill, Walta Abay, 23, Hitkaran Johal, 19, are all charged with conspiracy to commit murder between Oct. 5 and 27, 2017.
Both Gill and Abay are also charged with possession of a loaded, restricted or prohibited firearm on Oct. 26, and being in a vehicle knowing there was a gun inside.
Porteous said the murder conspiracy involved “several victims” — some of whom were rival gang members.
But a Vancouver businessman with no gang links was also targeted by the group, Porteous said.
None of the victims are listed in court documents obtained by Postmedia.
Porteous said at one time the Gill group was aligned with the Kang faction of Brothers Keepers, which has traditionally been on the Red Scorpion side of a decade-long regional conflict.
But Postmedia has learned that the Gill group had switched allegiances to the United Nations side.
“I would suggest that they were working within a cell themselves, but they were working more on a contract basis for other crime groups or bigger crime groups,” Porteous said.
“The way these gangs are structured … across the region — there’s sort of the Red Scorpion-associated people and on the other side there’s the United Nations-associated people.”
He said smaller groups of upstarts or younger would-be gangsters form their own smaller gangs and align themselves with one side or the other.
Also charged are Simrat Lally and Pawandeep Chopra, both 20, and two youths who were 17 when their alleged offences occurred and therefore cannot be identified.
Lally is facing counts of conspiracy to discharge a firearm and conspiracy to commit arson, as well as two counts of possessing a firearm and one of being in a car containing a gun. Chopra allegedly possessed a loaded or restricted firearm on Oct. 30 in Vancouver. One youth is facing firearms charges while the other is charged with conspiracy to commit arson.
Porteous said the Gill group came to the attention of anti-gang investigators after a series of shootings last August.
“There was a spike in gang violence,” he said. “They were proactively targeted. We used a variety of police methods to gather evidence, including surveillance.”
Because the gang operated across the region, the VPD worked with the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, Porteous said.
CFSEU Chief Officer Kevin Hackett said the teamwork is “critical” and will continue.
“The coordinated and strategic engagement, disruption, and enforcement efforts that we have collectively undertaken since the start of this joint operation will continue as part of our long-term regional strategy,” Hackett said.
Even young gangsters who are not criminally sophisticated, like those in the Gill group, seem to have easy access to firearms, Porteous said.
“We are seeing more and more weapons on the street. We are close to the border and a lot of stuff comes from across the line,” he said. “They are easily accessing weapons, so it is not that difficult. They are out there on the market for them to purchase.”
Porteous defended anti-gang programs aimed at prevention despite the young ages of those involved in the Gill group.
“There are 19, 20 and 21 year olds conspiring to commit murder, so apparently it wasn’t sinking in for them. But it does work for many others,” Porteous said of programs like End Gang Life.
“The overall education and prevention strategies that the police are using across the region are reducing (gang involvement) at the grassroots level.”
Taqdir Gill, 21 years old, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit arson, conspiracy to discharge a firearm, possession of a loaded restricted firearm, occupy a vehicle knowing a firearm is present, and extortion.
Hitkaran Johal, 19 years old, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit arson.
Simrat Lally, 20 years old, has been charged with conspiracy to discharge a firearm, conspiracy to commit arson, occupy a vehicle knowing a firearm is present, and two counts of possessing a firearm without a license/registration.
Walta Abay, 23 years old, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of a loaded restricted firearm, and occupying a vehicle knowing a firearm is present.
Pawandeep Chopra, 20 years old, has been charged with possession of a loaded restricted firearm.
A youth, 17 years old at the time of offence, has been charged with conspiracy to discharge a firearm, possess a firearm without a license/registration, and occupy a vehicle knowing a firearm is present.
A youth, 17 years old at the time of offence, has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson.
Ten years after his brother was killed in Surrey, 31-year-old Amanjot Hans has been identified as the region’s latest murder victim.
Hans was shot to death at a Langley gas station Tuesday evening about 9 p.m. just after arriving in a dark Range Rover. Investigators believe his murder was targeted.
On March 19, 2008, Hans’ older brother Harkinder was gunned down in the parking lot of the Eagle Quest Golf Club in Surrey. At the time, police said he had gang links. He had also been named as a defendant in a massive ICBC fraud case involving a number of gangsters.
His father Balwant claimed in 2008 that the elder brother was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and that he was a law-abiding SFU student.
Harkinder’s murder remains unsolved.
Cpl. Frank Jang, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said investigators will be looking at whether the murders of the brothers a decade apart are linked.
“Our team will be looking at everything from Amanjot’s past, including his brother’s death. We’re looking at any possible ties to gangs that he may have had,” Jang said.
Amanjot Hans had no criminal record in B.C., according to the online court database.
At least one Hells Angel prospect was mourning Hans’ death on social media.
But sources say Hans had friends and associates in several different groups.
Jang said investigators are still hoping to get dash cam video from drivers who were travelling along 72 Avenue between 232 Street and Highway 10 from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. May 15.
And they are looking for the public’s help to determine what Hans was doing before his fatal visit to the Chevron station Tuesday night.
“We are releasing Mr. Hans’ name in an effort to determine his activities and who he may have had contact with before his death,” Jang said. “We urge anyone with information to please come forward.”
Police also found a dark-coloured Dodge pickup truck burning in the 8300-block of 196 Street in Langley shortly after Hans was shot.
Torching suspect vehicles has become a hallmark of Lower Mainland gang shootings in recent years. Jang said investigators are looking for information about the torched truck as well.
Anyone with information is asked to contact IHIT at 1-877-551-4448 or ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
A 55-year-old SeaTac man has been arrested and charged in connection with the 1987 murder of a young Victoria couple.
Families of Jay Cook, 20, and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, were present at an Everett news conference Friday where the Snohomish County Sheriff’s office announced the break in the case.
William Talbott II was arrested as he was leaving work earlier this week.
DNA from Van Cuylenborg’s murder matched that of a relative of Talbott’s when forensic experts created a profile on a public genetic genealogy website.
It was a similar process to the one used recently to arrest the suspected Golden State serial killer in California.
Just last month, law enforcement released a sketch of a suspect that was based on DNA taken from the crime scenes where the bodies of Cook and Cuylenborg were found.
At the time, police said they hoped the sketches and technology used to create them would lead to a break in the 21-year-old murder case.
But the drawings are not what led to the break in the case, according to police.
Victoria couple Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered in 1987 in Washington State. Police in 2018 released an image of a potential suspect in the unsolved killings that was created by Snapshot DNA phenotyping. The suspect aged 25, 45 and 65. [PNG Merlin Archive]
Cook’s sister Laura Baanstra thanked investigators and the public for calling in tips over the last month.
The young couple left Victoria on Nov. 18, 1987 for an overnight trip to Seattle.
Jay’s body was found days later dumped on the side of the road in Snohomish County, covered with a blue blanket. He had been strangled.
Tanya was also found slain in a ditch in neighbouring Skagit County. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head.
For more than 30 years, detectives in both counties worked tirelessly to find the young couple’s killer without success, despite having collected his DNA.
The pair was planning a short overnight trip to pick up furnace parts in Seattle for Jay’s father’s business.
Det. Jim Scharf, of the Snohomish County cold case unit, said they caught the MV Coho ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles on Nov. 18, 1987, arriving at about 5:30 p.m. They missed a turnoff, so stopped at a local grocery store.
They got to Allen, Wash., at about 9:30 p.m. and stopped at a deli there. At 10:16 p.m., they bought a ticket for the Bremerton ferry to Seattle, which would have put them in the city about 11:30 p.m.
For the past 13 years, Snohomish Det. Jim Scharf has been working with Skagit County detectives trying to solve the kidnapping and slaying of Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20. This is a timeline in the case:
The pair had planned to sleep in the van near the former Kingdome stadium. A missing person’s report was filed two days later, according to news archives.
On Nov. 24, a man walking on an isolated road near Alger, south of Bellingham, discovered Tanya‘s body.
“Her autopsy revealed she had a .38-calibre gunshot wound to the back of her head,” Scharf said.
“Tanya had been restrained with zip-tie-type fasteners, and she was sexually assaulted.”
The following day, her wallet, her ID, keys for the van, a pair of surgical gloves and a partial box of ammunition were found under the back porch of a Bellingham pub, he said. The brown van that Jay and Tanya had been driving was found a block away from the pub, beside the Greyhound bus station, locked and in a parking lot.
A witness told police it had been there since Nov. 21.
On American Thanksgiving – Nov. 26, 1987 – Jay’s body was found, Scharf said, near a minimum-security prison that has since closed but was operating at the time. More of the killer’s ziptie restraints were found near his body. “The person who did this came prepared to do a brutalcrime,” Scharf said.
Some of the couple’s items were missing — a green backpack and a black men’s jacket, as well as Tanya‘s Minolta camera, which has never been found, although its lens turned up at a Portland pawnshop in 1990.
MORE TO COME…
Snohomish County Cold Case Detective Jim Scharf, left, presents new images rendered using phenotype technology of a potential suspect in the unsolved case of the 1987 double homicide of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg during a press conference in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.
December 5 1987. Skagit County Sheriff Gary Frazier examines Jay Cook’s 1977 Ford van in which he and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg were on their way to Seattle. Cook’s 1977 bronze-colored Ford van was found abandoned in Bellingham parking lot a week after the couple went missing.
High school sweethearts, Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook, vanished on a trip to the Seattle in 1987. Their bodies were found a few weeks later in separate locations in Washington state.
Missing poster for Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.
It was just last month that we were reminded of the horrific details of the 1987 murders of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.
The case had gone unsolved for more than 30 years. Until this week.
Investigators announced Friday that they had made an arrest after using a public genealogy website to find relatives that matched the DNA found at the crime scene three decades ago.
NOTE: I am closing comments for the long weekend as I will be out of town.
Here’s my story:
Washington police announce arrest in 1987
murder of Victoria couple
Family members of two young Victoria sweethearts murdered 31 years ago expressed relief and gratitude Friday after a Washington man was arrested in connection with their brutal slayings.
William Earl Talbott, 55, was picked up as he left his Seattle trucking job Thursday and charged with killing Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, in November 1987.
He is also expected to be charged with murdering Tanya’s boyfriend, Jay Cook, 20, Snohomish County Det. Jim Scharf said Friday.
Cook’s mother, Lee, said she had “waited and hoped for a day like this” ever since Jay and Tanya vanished while on an overnight trip to Seattle. Days later, their bodies were found dumped in neighbouring Washington counties.
“How could we have known that instead the day could be so bittersweet. On one hand, we are closer to closure. And on the other, we are still at a loss and I don’t have my only son Jay,” Lee Cook said after thanking investigators for their dedication to the case.
For Tanya’s brother, John Van Cuylenborg, the arrest has given him “a sense of some justice that is starting to happen here for these two wonderful kids.”
“They deserve justice to be done. They were both gentle souls, caring and trusting kids, and they were betrayed,” he said.
Talbott was identified after a company called Parabon Nanolabs was hired to assist investigators using new DNA technology.
Genetic genealogist CeCe Moore used a public databank to upload the suspect’s DNA and build a family tree from those with partial matches back to Talbott’s great-grandparents.
She then started building the tree forward until “two of the closest matches’ trees converged. They intersected into a marriage, and from that marriage there was only one son.”
“That led us to really only one person who could carry this mix of DNA,” said Moore, who offered her condolences to the families.
Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Talbott’s arrest “shows how powerful it can be to combine new DNA technology with the relentless determination of detectives.”
“We never gave up hope that we would find Jay and Tanya’s killer,” he said.
But he said more work needs to be done in the case.
“Skagit and Snohomish county detectives are looking to speak to anyone who knew Talbott or knew of his activities in 1987 or 1988. He would have been 24 years old at the time of the crime and living in Woodenville,” Trenary said.
Police want to know if anyone saw Talbott driving the Cook family’s brown van or in possession of Tanya’s Minolta X700 camera.
Trenary’s voice broke when he described arresting someone after so much time.
“It is a difficult thing for us, but candidly, this is what we do our jobs for,” he said.
Scharf said Talbott refused to talk to investigators when he was arrested. He said the suspect appears to have never married or had a family.
“We don’t have any idea what the motive was here. We are not even sure how the individual met up with our victims,” Scharf said.
Talbott had been arrested before for drugs and possibly indecent exposure, but the cases were dismissed, Scharf said.
Just last month, Snohomish County detectives held a news conference to release composite drawings of a suspect that Parabon had created using DNA markers.
Scharf said the images did not have any impact on the break in the case, which only happened because of the use of the genealogy website.
In April, police in California used the same technique to arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, who is suspected of being the Golden State Killer. Critics complained that law enforcement was potentially invading the privacy of unwitting website users.
But Scharf and the family members of the slain couple defended the investigative technique.
“If it hadn’t been for genetic genealogy, we wouldn’t be standing here today. And if it’s not allowed to be used in law enforcement, we would never have solved his case,” Scharf said.
Jay and Tanya left Victoria on Nov. 18, 1987 for what was supposed to be a quick trip to Seattle.
The couple caught the MV Coho ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, arriving at about 5:30 p.m. They missed a turnoff, so stopped at a local grocery store.
They got to Allen, Wash., at about 9:30 p.m. and stopped at a deli there. At 10:16 p.m., they bought a ticket for the Bremerton ferry to Seattle, which would have put them in the city about 11:30 p.m.
The pair had planned to sleep in the van near the former Kingdome stadium. A missing persons report was filed two days later, according to news archives.
Jay’s body was found days later dumped on the side of the road in Snohomish County, covered with a blue blanket. He had been strangled.
On Nov. 24, a man walking on an isolated road near Alger, south of Bellingham in Skagit County, discovered Tanya’s body in a ditch. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head with a .38-calibre firearm. She had been restrained with zip-tie-type fasteners.
The following day, her wallet, her ID, keys for the van, a pair of surgical gloves and a partial box of ammunition were found under the back porch of a Bellingham pub. The brown van that Jay and Tanya had been driving was found a block away from the pub, beside the Greyhound bus station, locked and in a parking lot.
A witness told police it had been there since Nov. 21.
Some of the couple’s items were missing — a green backpack and a black men’s jacket, as well as Tanya’s Minolta camera, which has never been found, although its lens turned up at a Portland pawnshop in 1990.
Victoria couple Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered in 1987 in Washington State. Earlier this year, police released an image of a potential suspect in the unsolved killings that was created by Snapshot DNA phenotyping. The image shows the suspect at age 25, 45 and 65.SNAPSHOT DNA / PNGFor the past 13 years, Snohomish Det. Jim Scharf has been working with Skagit County detectives trying to solve the kidnapping and slaying of Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20. This map shows a timeline of the case.TIMES COLONISTSnohomish County Cold Case Detective Jim Scharf, left, presents new images rendered using phenotype technology of a potential suspect in the unsolved case of the 1987 double homicide of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg during a press conference in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.IAN TERRY / APDecember 5 1987. Skagit County Sheriff Gary Frazier examines Jay Cook’s 1977 Ford van in which he and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg were on their way to Seattle. Cook’s 1977 bronze-colored Ford van was found abandoned in Bellingham parking lot a week after the couple went missing.MARK VAN MANEN / VANCOUVER SUN / PNGHigh school sweethearts, Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook, vanished on a trip to the Seattle in 1987. Their bodies were found a few weeks later in separate locations in Washington state.PNGMissing poster for Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.PNG
A Vancouver police search of a Yaletown apartment that resulted in the seizure of an illegal AK-47, two Ruger guns, a silencer and ammunition violated the Charter rights of the condo resident, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled.
Justice Heather MacNaughton acquitted Michael John French of several firearms charges after she ruled that the guns could not be used as evidence because the police initially searched his 16th floor unit in May 2014 without a warrant.
The Crown in the case had argued that police had exigent circumstances to go into French’s suite at 1199 Seymour Street because of a call from a neighbour that French had assaulted someone. Officers had also been told that French was suicidal and had sent disturbing text messages to friends.
But MacNaughton noted in her May 16 ruling that French cooperated with police and complied with their request to exit the suite. No officers asked his permission to go inside.
“There was no objective basis for a concern that there was a victim of an assault in the suite. There was also no objective basis to believe that there was a possible assailant in the suite who would present a risk to them,” MacNaughton said.
After an initial walkthrough, the officers found a live round for a .233 calibre firearm on the kitchen floor. They went back in a second time and looked for a gun.
One officer testified that when he searched a closet, “he found a pistol, two magazines loaded with ammunition, and a threaded suppressor, or silencer, which appeared to fit the threaded end of the pistol.”
At that point police placed French under arrest, locked down the suite and went to obtain a search warrant.
They came back the following evening around 10:30 p.m. with the warrant and found the AK-47 and another rifle, plus oversized magazines and ammunition.
MacNaughton said she had no choice but to disallow the firearms into evidence.
“I have concluded that the warrantless search of Mr. French’s residence was unlawful and unreasonable. The initial search violated his rights under Section 8 of the Charter,” she said. “The subsequent warrantless search and the search under warrant were also unlawful, as the grounds for them were undermined by the illegality of the first search.”
Police would not have been able to get a search warrant without the information obtained during the improper search, she said.
She also ruled that police violated French’s rights when they handcuffed him in the hallway after he complied with their request to come out of the apartment.
MacNaughton acknowledged that the charges against French were serious and “that there is a substantial public interest in this case in having them adjudicated on their merits.”
“This is particularly so because Mr. French had the firearms in a residential building in the heart of downtown Vancouver,” she said.
But she sad in the long term, the reputation of the justice system “would be adversely affected by admitting the firearms.”
A major Coquitlam fentanyl trafficker, who sold more than 50,000 of the deadly pills in a year, was sentenced Friday to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug and firearms charges.
B.C. Provincial Court Judge Gene Jamieson said Andrew Leach preyed on drug addicts and put his own family at risk by storing fentanyl, hundreds of thousands in cash and firearms inside their Coquitlam home.
“Mr. Leach was engaged as the head of an organization with a long, lucrative history of fentanyl sales,” Jamieson said. “The particularly pernicious nature of the substance at the heart of this operation having been the centre of a persistent and deadly health crisis in the province must be recognized and denounced.”
Leach was captured on wiretap threatening to slit the throat of someone who owed him money and suggesting to an associate that his friend was a “rat” and needed to be shot.
Jamieson said the threats, coupled with Leach’s 2011 conviction for manslaughter, were aggravating factors in his sentencing.
“Such threats are particularly troubling and aggravating in light of his capacity for violence, as shown by his manslaughter conviction arising from stabbing a Hells Angels associate as that person sought to retreat away from Mr. Leach,” he said.
“It is apparent that with access to weapons, his experience in committing a violent offence, together with the temper he exposed in the audio recordings, provide a recipe for danger.”
Federal prosecutor Maggie Loda had argued that a 22-year sentence was appropriate for Leach, while defence lawyer David Milburn had urged a term of eight years be imposed.
He argued that Leach’s early guilty plea, just months after his August 2017 arrest, as well as Leach’s apology to the court, were mitigating factors in his client’s favour.
But Jamieson said the expression of remorse rang hollow when contrasted by some of the comments Leach made during the intercepted conversations.
When the mother of a customer called the dial-a-dope number complaining that her son had gotten sick from Leach’s product, he expressed no concern and commented that they had to change the line’s phone number and the delivery cars.
He also made racist and derogatory comments about his own drug-line workers who were of Persian descent, Jamieson said.
Leach also commented to an associate that he wanted to expand his drug line into Langley, but would need more guns to do so.
“The potential for violence is further enhanced by his comments on the intercepts as to his intention to expand to other places such as Langley and how he anticipates ‘a war’ coming,” Jamieson said. “I also think it is significant that the weapons Mr. Leach possessed were stored in a haphazard manner within his mother’s bedroom closet.”
Jamieson said Leach not only made his family vulnerable to arrest by stashing his drugs, cash and guns at their house, he put them at risk to be targeted by rivals.
“This collection of money, drugs and weapons in their home placed the family in jeopardy of being arrested and facing charges. All these circumstances show a significant disregard for the safety and wellbeing of his family,” Jamieson said.
“In my view his moral culpability is high, having regard to his pivotal and insulated role as the head of this well-organized business-like drug line, his preparedness to engage in threats of violence, his clear motivation being one of profit, his predatory relationship with addicts as cheap labour for his operation and his disregard for the safety and security of the public.”
Jamieson noted that Leach’s letters of support were from his mother Karen, 70, sister Rhonda, 40 and nephew Marcus, 20, all three of whom were arrested and charged along with the gang’s kingpin last August.
But with Friday’s sentencing, the charges against the other family members were stayed.
His mother cursed at police in the courtroom as she walked out before the proceedings ended. At one point, she shouted “lie” as Jamieson read his lengthy decision.
A Federal Court judge has ruled that a United Nations gang associate should be allowed out of immigration detention pending his deportation to Iraq.
Chief Judge Paul Crampton sided with two immigration board members who decided earlier this spring that convicted gunman Aram Ali should be allowed to leave detention and live with his family in Calgary.
Both board members placed Ali, 32, on strict conditions “to adequately mitigate” any risk Ali poses to the public.
But Ali was never released following the immigration board rulings because the Canada Border Services Agency asked the Federal Court to review the decisions, arguing the board members had made a mistake and that Ali was still too dangerous to be allowed into the community.
Ali was convicted for shooting up a gang rival’s Range Rover outside Surrey’s T-Barz strip club in February 2009. The vehicle’s driver was struck, but the target of the shooting, Independent Soldier Tyler Hillock, escaped injury.
Ali testified that he did the shooting for a friend, high-ranking UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli. At the time, Ali was on bail on a drug trafficking charge.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge called him a mercenary for hire, and in December 2015 sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years, reduced to three-and-a-half after credit for his pretrial custody.
While serving his sentence, a deportation order was issued against him on the grounds of serious criminality. In March, another immigration board member ruled that he was too dangerous to stay in Canada, saying “the circumstances of Mr. Ali’s most recent offence are chilling.”
So when he reached his statutory release in April, Ali was handed over to the CBSA to await deportation.
That triggered a routine 48-hour detention review before immigration board member Laura Ko, who ordered his release on a $5,000 bond and several conditions.
The CBSA sought and got a stay of Ko’s ruling the same day at the Federal Court and he remained in custody.
Then on May 3, board member Michael McPhelan ordered Ali released again on more stringent conditions and two $5,000 bonds — one put up by his mother in Calgary and the second by a family friend.
Ali was still not released as the CBSA returned to the Federal Court.
Crampton heard the case May 25 via video conference and issued a ruling earlier this week.
He said that neither the Ko nor the McPhelan decisions was “unreasonable.”
Crampton said the conditions placed on Ali by both board members “would ensure that he would likely report for removal from Canada, if and when required to do so.”
And the conditions, including a curfew, “would collectively ensure that he would not pose a meaningful risk to the public,” Crampton said.
United Nations gang hitman Cory Vallee was convicted Friday of conspiring to kill the Bacon brothers and murdering one of their closest friends.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon said the Crown had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt that Vallee was brought in to the UN conspiracy specifically as a hitman, and that he was one of two shooters who killed Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair outside a Langley strip mall on Feb. 6, 2009.
Dillon noted that the four key defence witnesses, known as A, B, C and D due to publication bans, were all former gang members and “unsavoury” characters.
But she said some of their evidence was corroborated by video surveillance, intercepts and other evidence collected by police in the massive murder investigation.
In convicting Vallee on both charges, Dillon relied specifically on the evidence of witnesses B and C, who said Vallee showed them the AR-15 he used in the LeClair hit before the afternoon shooting.
And Vallee later commented that the deadly firearm was “awesome.”
The two policing agencies that investigated the case – the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team and the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – both commented on the verdict.
“This was a long, complex and resource intensive investigation,” IHIT Superintendent Donna Richardson said.
“I would like to acknowledge the dedication and tireless efforts of investigators from IHIT and CFSEU-BC as well as our numerous domestic and foreign partner agencies that contributed to this investigation.”
CFSEU Chief Officer Kevin Hackett said the convictions came because of the “sustained cooperation, hard work and persistence of IHIT and CFSEU-BC members.”
“Officers and support staff from numerous agencies have also assisted over these past seven years,” Hackett said. “The result should also serve as a reminder to those who threaten our communities with gang and gun violence, we will not rest until they are held to account.”
Vallee received an automatic life sentence with no hope of parole 25 years for the first-degree murder conviction. He will be sentenced on the conspiracy conviction on June 28.
UN gang hitman Cory Vallee just convicted of first-degree murder of Red Scorpion gangster Kevin LeClair and conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers in 2008 and 2009. Mandatory life sentence with no parole for 25 years.
Defence lawyer for Vallee is asking Justice Janice Dillon NOT to enter her judgment yet due to some "issue" that has arisen. No details of what the issue is. Very cloak and dagger.
Hey Real Scoop readers – sorry about having things shut down over the last couple of weeks. I have had too many off-work things to deal with so haven’t had time to review comments after hours. That’s why I have left them closed until now.
I am also putting up some stories that I have written over the last week.
A judge ruled this fellow had his Charter rights violated by the VPD, so he was acquitted on several firearms charges.
Vancouver man acquitted of gun charges
after judge says police violated his rights
A Vancouver police search of a Yaletown apartment that resulted in the seizure of an illegal AK-47, two Ruger guns, a silencer and ammunition violated the Charter rights of the condo resident, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled.
Justice Heather MacNaughton acquitted Michael John French of several firearms charges after she ruled that the guns could not be used as evidence because the police initially searched his 16th floor unit in May 2014 without a warrant.
The Crown in the case had argued that police had exigent circumstances to go into French’s suite at 1199 Seymour Street because of a call from a neighbour that French had assaulted someone. Officers had also been told that French was suicidal and had sent disturbing text messages to friends.
But MacNaughton noted in her May 16 ruling that French cooperated with police and complied with their request to exit the suite. No officers asked his permission to go inside.
“There was no objective basis for a concern that there was a victim of an assault in the suite. There was also no objective basis to believe that there was a possible assailant in the suite who would present a risk to them,” MacNaughton said.
After an initial walkthrough, the officers found a live round for a .233 calibre firearm on the kitchen floor. They went back in a second time and looked for a gun.
One officer testified that when he searched a closet, “he found a pistol, two magazines loaded with ammunition, and a threaded suppressor, or silencer, which appeared to fit the threaded end of the pistol.”
At that point police placed French under arrest, locked down the suite and went to obtain a search warrant.
They came back the following evening around 10:30 p.m. with the warrant and found the AK-47 and another rifle, plus oversized magazines and ammunition.
MacNaughton said she had no choice but to disallow the firearms into evidence.
“I have concluded that the warrantless search of Mr. French’s residence was unlawful and unreasonable. The initial search violated his rights under Section 8 of the Charter,” she said. “The subsequent warrantless search and the search under warrant were also unlawful, as the grounds for them were undermined by the illegality of the first search.”
Police would not have been able to get a search warrant without the information obtained during the improper search, she said.
She also ruled that police violated French’s rights when they handcuffed him in the hallway after he complied with their request to come out of the apartment.
MacNaughton acknowledged that the charges against French were serious and “that there is a substantial public interest in this case in having them adjudicated on their merits.”
“This is particularly so because Mr. French had the firearms in a residential building in the heart of downtown Vancouver,” she said.
But she sad in the long term, the reputation of the justice system “would be adversely affected by admitting the firearms.”
Andrew Leach made the ultimate sacrifice to keep his family members out of jail. He pleaded guilty to serious trafficking charges so that the Crown would stay several counts laid against his mom, sister and nephew.
A major Coquitlam fentanyl trafficker, who sold more than 50,000 of the deadly pills in a year, was sentenced Friday to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug and firearms charges.
B.C. Provincial Court Judge Gene Jamieson said Andrew Leach preyed on drug addicts and put his own family at risk by storing fentanyl, hundreds of thousands in cash and firearms inside their Coquitlam home.
“Mr. Leach was engaged as the head of an organization with a long, lucrative history of fentanyl sales,” Jamieson said. “The particularly pernicious nature of the substance at the heart of this operation having been the centre of a persistent and deadly health crisis in the province must be recognized and denounced.”
Leach was captured on wiretap threatening to slit the throat of someone who owed him money and suggesting to an associate that his friend was a “rat” and needed to be shot.
Jamieson said the threats, coupled with Leach’s 2011 conviction for manslaughter, were aggravating factors in his sentencing.
“Such threats are particularly troubling and aggravating in light of his capacity for violence, as shown by his manslaughter conviction arising from stabbing a Hells Angels associate as that person sought to retreat away from Mr. Leach,” he said.
“It is apparent that with access to weapons, his experience in committing a violent offence, together with the temper he exposed in the audio recordings, provide a recipe for danger.”
Federal prosecutor Maggie Loda had argued that a 22-year sentence was appropriate for Leach, while defence lawyer David Milburn had urged a term of eight years be imposed.
He argued that Leach’s early guilty plea, just months after his August 2017 arrest, as well as Leach’s apology to the court, were mitigating factors in his client’s favour.
But Jamieson said the expression of remorse rang hollow when contrasted by some of the comments Leach made during the intercepted conversations.
When the mother of a customer called the dial-a-dope number complaining that her son had gotten sick from Leach’s product, he expressed no concern and commented that they had to change the line’s phone number and the delivery cars.
He also made racist and derogatory comments about his own drug-line workers who were of Persian descent, Jamieson said.
Leach also commented to an associate that he wanted to expand his drug line into Langley, but would need more guns to do so.
“The potential for violence is further enhanced by his comments on the intercepts as to his intention to expand to other places such as Langley and how he anticipates ‘a war’ coming,” Jamieson said. “I also think it is significant that the weapons Mr. Leach possessed were stored in a haphazard manner within his mother’s bedroom closet.”
Jamieson said Leach not only made his family vulnerable to arrest by stashing his drugs, cash and guns at their house, he put them at risk to be targeted by rivals.
“This collection of money, drugs and weapons in their home placed the family in jeopardy of being arrested and facing charges. All these circumstances show a significant disregard for the safety and wellbeing of his family,” Jamieson said.
“In my view his moral culpability is high, having regard to his pivotal and insulated role as the head of this well-organized business-like drug line, his preparedness to engage in threats of violence, his clear motivation being one of profit, his predatory relationship with addicts as cheap labour for his operation and his disregard for the safety and security of the public.”
Jamieson noted that Leach’s letters of support were from his mother Karen, 70, sister Rhonda, 40 and nephew Marcus, 20, all three of whom were arrested and charged along with the gang’s kingpin last August.
But with Friday’s sentencing, the charges against the other family members were stayed.
His mother cursed at police in the courtroom as she walked out before the proceedings ended. At one point, she shouted “lie” as Jamieson read his lengthy decision.
Aram Ali may not be in Canada for long, but he will get to spend his remaining days living with his family in Calgary. He was finally released from Immigration detention on Thursday after finishing two-thirds of his prison sentence in mid-April.
He was, of course, convicted in the 2009 shooting outside T-Baez strip club in Surrey.
A Federal Court judge has ruled that a United Nations gang associate should be allowed out of immigration detention pending his deportation to Iraq.
Chief Judge Paul Crampton sided with two immigration board members who decided earlier this spring that convicted gunman Aram Ali should be allowed to leave detention and live with his family in Calgary.
Both board members placed Ali, 32, on strict conditions “to adequately mitigate” any risk Ali poses to the public.
But Ali was never released following the immigration board rulings because the Canada Border Services Agency asked the Federal Court to review the decisions, arguing the board members had made a mistake and that Ali was still too dangerous to be allowed into the community.
Ali was convicted for shooting up a gang rival’s Range Rover outside Surrey’s T-Barz strip club in February 2009. The vehicle’s driver was struck, but the target of the shooting, Independent Soldier Tyler Hillock, escaped injury.
Ali testified that he did the shooting for a friend, high-ranking UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli. At the time, Ali was on bail on a drug trafficking charge.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge called him a mercenary for hire, and in December 2015 sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years, reduced to three-and-a-half after credit for his pretrial custody.
While serving his sentence, a deportation order was issued against him on the grounds of serious criminality. In March, another immigration board member ruled that he was too dangerous to stay in Canada, saying “the circumstances of Mr. Ali’s most recent offence are chilling.”
So when he reached his statutory release in April, Ali was handed over to the CBSA to await deportation.
That triggered a routine 48-hour detention review before immigration board member Laura Ko, who ordered his release on a $5,000 bond and several conditions.
The CBSA sought and got a stay of Ko’s ruling the same day at the Federal Court and he remained in custody.
Then on May 3, board member Michael McPhelan ordered Ali released again on more stringent conditions and two $5,000 bonds — one put up by his mother in Calgary and the second by a family friend.
Ali was still not released as the CBSA returned to the Federal Court.
Crampton heard the case May 25 via video conference and issued a ruling earlier this week.
He said that neither the Ko nor the McPhelan decisions was “unreasonable.”
Crampton said the conditions placed on Ali by both board members “would ensure that he would likely report for removal from Canada, if and when required to do so.”
And the conditions, including a curfew, “would collectively ensure that he would not pose a meaningful risk to the public,” Crampton said.
Throughout his murder trial, Cory Vallee would smile as he entered the high-security courtroom. But he looked much more serious Friday when he learned he will likely spent the next 25 years behind bars. He was convicted on both counts yesterday by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon.
United Nations gang hitman Cory Vallee was convicted Friday of conspiring to kill the notorious Bacon brothers and murdering one of their closest friends.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon said the Crown had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt that Vallee was brought in to the UN as a hitman, and that he was one of two shooters who killed Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair outside a Langley strip mall on Feb. 6, 2009.
Handout photo of Jamie Bacon (left) and Kevin LeClair, who was slain in Feb., 2009.
“The decision to kill LeClair was planned and deliberate, with time to assess the situation,” Dillon said. “Cory Vallee was a member of the conspiracy to kill members of the Bacon group. LeClair was a target with a price on his head. Vallee was at the Thunderbird Centre intending to kill the LeClair target and he achieved his goal.”
LeClair’s father sobbed when Dillon pronounced the guilty verdict. The small, high-security Vancouver courtroom was packed with police and prosecutors who had worked on the case.
The brazen daylight murder at a busy mall was part of a bloody turf war between the UN and the Red Scorpions that escalated when popular UN member Duane Meyer was shot to death in Abbotsford on May 8, 2008.
The UN hunted their enemies across the region, watching their hangouts, recording licence plates and circulating their photos.
Dillon noted that the four key Crown witnesses, known as A, B, C and D due to a publication ban, were all former UN members and “unsavory” characters.
But she said some of their testimony was corroborated by video surveillance, intercepted conversations, and other evidence gathered by police during the massive investigation.
In convicting Vallee of murder, Dillon said she relied specifically on the evidence of witnesses B and C, who testified about being with the hitman the day LeClair was shot.
B testified that he met Vallee at a Tim Hortons near the Thunderbird Mall hours before LeClair was gunned down.
“Vallee showed Witness B an AR-15 gun that was in the back passenger area of (his vehicle),” Dillon noted.
Cory Vallee in 2011 mug shots provided by police
Surveillance video from the Tim Hortons confirmed B’s testimony about meeting Vallee, Witness C and another man named Ismailaj Kreshnik at 1 p.m., Dillon said.
Vallee’s lawyers had argued that C was actually one of the shooters and that Vallee left the area after the Tim Hortons meeting.
But Dillon said she had “concluded that Vallee remained as it was his job to do.”
Vallee, Witness B and Kreshnik “spotted LeClair in his truck and they followed him to where he parked at the Thunderbird Centre and then entered the Browns Social House restaurant,” Dillon said.
They contacted the other shooter, Jesse Adkins, and he met them, and then “they parked and waited.”
LeClair left the restaurant at about 4 p.m. and headed toward his Lincoln pick-up.
“Two shooters killed LeClair shortly after he got into the driver’s seat of his truck and tried to get away,” Dillon said.
A handgun and an AR-15 were left at the scene “along with a black duffle bag from which the machine gunman had removed the AR-15,” Dillon said.
She said witnesses to the shooting, as well as a mall surveillance video and the Tim Hortons video “establish a consistency between the appearance of the machine gunman and Cory Vallee.”
“Witness B described the getaway and a conversation with Vallee afterwards in which Vallee described a problem with the safety on the AR-15,” Dillon said.
Witnesses had testified that the gun seemed to jam at first.
“Vallee later told Witness C that the gun was awesome,” Dillon noted.
Vallee sold his black Caravan right after the shooting “because he believed that the van linked him to the LeClair crime scene,” she said.
Dillon said “the murder of LeClair was a contract killing.”
“While it was not established that Vallee did receive money for the killing of LeClair, it was intended that he would receive payment.”
The key witnesses and other evidence in the case proved that Vallee was also part of the plot to kill the Bacons from Jan. 1, 2008 to Feb. 8, 2009, Dillon said.
“Vallee was introduced to high-level members of the gang by (leader Clay) Roueche as ‘Frankie’ and given the role as a hitman in the search to kill members of the Bacon group. Vallee changed his nickname to Panther and participated in the search. He was given a UN ring for his service.”
Vallee received an automatic life sentence with no hope of parole 25 years for the first-degree murder conviction. He will be sentenced on the conspiracy conviction on June 28.
The two policing agencies that investigated the case — the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team — both said the verdict reflected the hard work done on the file.
“This was a long, complex and resource-intensive investigation,” IHIT Superintendent Donna Richardson said. “I would like to acknowledge the dedication and tireless efforts of investigators from IHIT and CFSEU-BC as well as our numerous domestic and foreign partner agencies that contributed to this investigation.”
CFSEU Chief Officer Kevin Hackett said the convictions came because of the “sustained cooperation, hard work and persistence of IHIT and CFSEU-BC members.”
“Officers and support staff from numerous agencies have also assisted over these past seven years,” Hackett said. “The result should also serve as a reminder to those who threaten our communities with gang and gun violence, we will not rest until they are held to account.”
A former Metro Vancouver realtor who has been leasing luxury properties to B.C. gangsters is behind bars in the U.S. charged with international money laundering.
Omid Mashinchi, 35, appeared in a Boston courtroom last month and was ordered held pending trial.
U.S. authorities allege that he wired hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money over several months last year to banks in Massachusetts through one of his company’s accounts.
The indictment in the case says that Mashinchi knew the funds involved “represented the proceeds of crime” and “that such transportation, transmission and transfer was designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”
The underlying crime alleged is “the manufacture, importation, sale and distribution of a controlled substance.”
The charges against Mashinchi were sworn in January, but remained under seal until his arrest in April as he landed at SeaTac International Airport on a flight from Vancouver. He was going to visiting his parents in Sacramento.
There are no details in the U.S. allegations about the source of the criminal money.
A Postmedia investigation has found that Mashinchi has started at least three companies in B.C. since 2006, all related to the real estate industry.
And for years, police say, Mashinchi has been associating with B.C. gangsters, including leasing them condos that were used both as stash houses and as residences.
Postmedia has learned that his company Mashinchi Investments, also known as the Residence Club, leased the luxury North Vancouver condo where Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal was shot to death last December.
And Mashinchi also leased out a West Vancouver house that was targeted in an unsolved drive-by shooting on October 8, 2017.
“Mashinchi is well-known to the policing community and has rented several properties to known gang members,” Mike Porteous, a Vancouver police superintendent. “Many of these properties have been tied to criminal activity such as drug dealing and violent events including murder and drive-by shootings, which are gang-related.”
B.C.’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has also come across Mashinchi and his properties in recent years.
“He has had for many years an association to the Wolf Pack,” Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said.
The Wolf Pack is a gang alliance consisting of some members of the Hells Angels, some Red Scorpion gangsters and some in the Independent Soldiers gang. It has been locked for years in a deadly gang conflict with rivals from the United Nations gang and Dhak-Duhre group.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby has repeatedly raised concerns about organized crime laundering money through casinos and the province’s hot real estate market. But the charges against Mashinchi suggest dirty cash could also be infusing property leasing and high-end rentals.
“This is the first time that I heard that leasing may be used or tied to people involved in organized crime to conceal transactions or to be involved with money laundering,” Eby said Friday. “It is another example of why the province has a responsibility to look very carefully at what’s happening in real estate and identify weaknesses that would allow this kind of activity to take place.”
Mashinchi faces no criminal charges in B.C. nor has any record here.
He was a realtor with the Royalty Group from April 2009 until June 2016, when he voluntarily gave up his licence.
Elise Palmer, of the Real Estate Council of B.C., would not say if there had been any complaints made against Mashinchi.
“Our investigations are confidential so I can’t tell you if there were any complaints against him. I can tell you there were no disciplinary decisions against him or no disciplinary action.”
Even to operate a property leasing or rental business, Mashinchi would require a licence issued by the real estate council. He used to have a management licence, but no longer does, Palmer said.
“Rental property management is a licensed activity. He has no licence with us at all,” she said. “So if he was doing unlicenced activity, that is something you would want to ask the superintendent of real estate.”
Despite not having a licence, Mashinchi has continued to lease condos through the Residence Club.
The “club” operates out of an unmarked townhouse at 867 Richards St., three doors down from a similar unit that Mashinchi bought last September 2017 for over $1.5 million.
In U.S. court documents, Mashinchi’s lawyer said Mashinchi’s brother Navid would be running the business while his sibling is awaiting trial.
But someone answering the phones at the company this week said that “Navid no longer works here.” The woman referred calls to “Navid and Omid’s attorney,” but refused to provide a name for any lawyer.
“That I cannot help you with. Sorry,” she said before hanging up.
As of Friday, the company was still advertising one-, two- and three-bedroom “self-catered units, well-situated in Downtown Vancouver.”
Suites were being rented for hundreds a night through online sites Expedia and Booking.com.
All three of Mashinchi’s companies — Mashinchi Investments Ltd., Omid Mashinchi Personal Real Estate Corp. and MLUX Homes Inc. — list the offices of Royalty Group Realty at 1065 Seymour as their address.
Royalty Group office manager Homeyra Panah said Mashinchi no longer has any affiliation with the real estate company, but simply has a mailbox there.
“What happened is that when he returned his licence to the council, he still had his mailbox here,” she said. “We don’t have any idea why he would put all of his companies at the office address here after he resigned all of his licences.”
She said Mashinchi at one point had both a realtor’s licence and a property management licence and ran another business called 604 Rentals.
Mashinchi had recently been asked not to use Royalty’s address, she said, adding that she had heard about the U.S. charges.
“We saw on Google. I was Googling him. We had some landlords that were contacting the office,” she said.
So how could organized crime use condo leases to launder illicit proceeds?
Christine Duhaime, an anti-money laundering expert and lawyer, said leases or rental properties could be misused through “trade-based money laundering — where you inflate the price to get a fake invoice to then move money.”
For example, if a property rented for $10,000 a month, the landlord could actually put twice that amount into the bank as the rent, effectively laundering $10,000.
“There is no record in the sense that it is just a private contract between you and the landlord so nobody really knows who lives in what space or how much you are paying for rent,” Duhaime said. “If you are going to fabricate the prices of things, it is really hard to detect that the money was not legitimately earned.”
Unlike real estate agents, those involved in property leasing are not required to report suspicious transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, better known as Fintrac.
Fintrac communications officer Jamela Austria said that a recent federal government report recognized that there are other businesses not currently covered by money laundering laws that “play an integral role within the real estate sector.”
“These entities are in a unique position to gather and report information related to money laundering and terrorist financing,” she said. “The real estate sector consists of high-value financial transactions and high-risk clients, including individuals in vulnerable occupations and businesses.”
RCMP Chief Supt. Keith Finn said there is obvious concern about money laundering through the real estate sector in B.C.
“Whenever you have a quick increase in prices there is an opportunity there for the criminals among us to use the flipping of houses and purchase and disposal as means to launder their money,” he said.
Finn said “the biggest challenge” of organized criminals is how to clean their funds.
Like Duhaime, Finn said leasing could be used in “trade-based” laundering “if there is enough money exchanging hands on a monthly basis.”
Asked specifically about whether the RCMP in B.C. is working with U.S. law enforcement on the Mashinchi case, Finn said: “I would say we are interested stakeholders.”
“It is an intriguing file. It raises a number of questions,” he said.
Eby said the possibility of condo leasing being used in money laundering “is another example of why we need the federal government to join with us in this work.”
“We talked about the transnational aspect of this before. Usually we are talking about China, but here it’s the United States. We need the federal government involved to help us connect the dots with things that are happening internationally and to provide those resources to the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency.
Postmedia obtained a copy of the leasing agreement that Mashinchi Investment Ltd. signed with the owner of the luxury North Vancouver condo where Grewal was murdered on Dec. 22, 2017.
Mashinchi signed the two-year agreement in February 2016, listing another name as the tenant who would be occupying the premises.
The agreed-upon rent for the penthouse suite was $5,500 a month and Mashinchi provided post-dated cheques on a Bank of Montreal business account.
The agreement says that he is not to sublet the suite, assessed this year at just under $1.9 million, at any time without written approval.” Nor was he allowed to use the suite “as a short-term rental.”
Grewal, who was facing a manslaughter charge at the time of his murder, moved into the unit after he was released on strict bail conditions on Sept. 27, 2017. His name appears nowhere on the condo lease. He was killed inside the apartment on Dec. 22.
North Van condo where gangster Gavinder Grewal was murdered.
IHIT believes the murder of Gavinder Grewal, 30, was a targeted hit. Grewal was shot dead Dec. 22 in a residence in the 1500 block of Fern Street in North Vancouver.
Grewal’s Brothers Keepers gang is aligned to the Wolf Pack through the Red Scorpions. His murder remains unsolved.
One of Mashinchi’s Boston lawyers, Joseph Savage, declined to comment on the money laundering case when contacted by Postmedia.
HIs client is facing five charges related to separate transactions in January, July and August 2017 totalling almost US$237,000. The U.S. alleges Mashinchi was paid a commission to wire the money through his company’s bank account.
Details of Mashinchi’s life before Vancouver were laid out in court documents when he tried unsuccessfully to get bail in a Seattle courtroom after his April arrest.
He was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1982 and moved to Germany when he was a toddler “for his father’s business and because of the war between Iran and Iraq.”
His parents sent him to school in Victoria in 1999 and he moved to the Lower Mainland a year later. He has Iranian, German and Canadian citizenship, something U.S. prosecutors argued could make him a flight risk.
His parents moved from Germany to Sacramento in 2008, where his father now runs a contracting business. Mashinchi’s Seattle lawyer Michael Martin said in his submissions that his client could stay with his parents pending his trial and noted that he has no criminal record.
“There is no indication he would choose to flee the country and become a fugitive of the United States, particularly in light of his history and character,” Martin said.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler denied Mashinchi bail, saying he could apply again in Boston.
The “defendant poses a risk of non-appearance based on financial resources, possession of three passports, international ties, residence in Canada, and an immigration detainer. Defendant poses a risk of danger based on the nature of the alleged offence,” she said. “There does not appear to be any condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance at future court hearings while addressing the danger to other persons or the community.”
I first heard about Omid Mashinchi in 2015 in connection with the conflict that resulted in a gang kidnapping for which Mo Rahimi is now charged. Rahimi remains a fugitive.
Mashinchi has no criminal record in B.C. but was frequently in the company of gangsters. And he did business with them, renting and leasing apartments, including he one where Gavin Grewal was murdered in December.
When I heard he had been arrested in the U.S. just over a month ago, I began working on this story.
Accused money launderer Omid Mashinchi and fugitive Mo Rahimi
A former Metro Vancouver realtor who has been leasing luxury properties to B.C. gangsters is behind bars in the U.S. charged with international money laundering.
Omid Mashinchi, 35, appeared in a Boston courtroom last month and was ordered held pending trial.
U.S. authorities allege that he wired hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug money over several months last year to banks in Massachusetts through one of his company’s accounts.
The indictment in the case says that Mashinchi knew the funds involved “represented the proceeds of crime” and “that such transportation, transmission and transfer was designed in whole or in part to conceal and disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership and the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”
The underlying crime alleged is “the manufacture, importation, sale and distribution of a controlled substance.”
The charges against Mashinchi were sworn in January, but remained under seal until his arrest in April as he landed at SeaTac International Airport on a flight from Vancouver. He was going to visiting his parents in Sacramento.
There are no details in the U.S. allegations about the source of the criminal money.
A Postmedia investigation has found that Mashinchi has started at least three companies in B.C. since 2006, all related to the real estate industry.
And for years, police say, Mashinchi has been associating with B.C. gangsters, including leasing them condos that were used both as stash houses and as residences.
Postmedia has learned that his company Mashinchi Investments, also known as the Residence Club, leased the luxury North Vancouver condo where Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal was shot to death last December.
And Mashinchi also leased out a West Vancouver house that was targeted in an unsolved drive-by shooting on October 8, 2017.
“Mashinchi is well-known to the policing community and has rented several properties to known gang members,” Mike Porteous, a Vancouver police superintendent. “Many of these properties have been tied to criminal activity such as drug dealing and violent events including murder and drive-by shootings, which are gang-related.”
B.C.’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit has also come across Mashinchi and his properties in recent years.
“He has had for many years an association to the Wolf Pack,” Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said.
The Wolf Pack is a gang alliance consisting of some members of the Hells Angels, some Red Scorpion gangsters and some in the Independent Soldiers gang. It has been locked for years in a deadly gang conflict with rivals from the United Nations gang and Dhak-Duhre group.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby has repeatedly raised concerns about organized crime laundering money through casinos and the province’s hot real estate market. But the charges against Mashinchi suggest dirty cash could also be infusing property leasing and high-end rentals.
“This is the first time that I heard that leasing may be used or tied to people involved in organized crime to conceal transactions or to be involved with money laundering,” Eby said Friday. “It is another example of why the province has a responsibility to look very carefully at what’s happening in real estate and identify weaknesses that would allow this kind of activity to take place.”
Mashinchi faces no criminal charges in B.C. nor has any record here.
He was a realtor with the Royalty Group from April 2009 until June 2016, when he voluntarily gave up his licence.
Elise Palmer, of the Real Estate Council of B.C., would not say if there had been any complaints made against Mashinchi.
“Our investigations are confidential so I can’t tell you if there were any complaints against him. I can tell you there were no disciplinary decisions against him or no disciplinary action.”
Even to operate a property leasing or rental business, Mashinchi would require a licence issued by the real estate council. He used to have a management licence, but no longer does, Palmer said.
“Rental property management is a licensed activity. He has no licence with us at all,” she said. “So if he was doing unlicenced activity, that is something you would want to ask the superintendent of real estate.”
Despite not having a licence, Mashinchi has continued to lease condos through the Residence Club.
The “club” operates out of an unmarked townhouse at 867 Richards St., three doors down from a similar unit that Mashinchi bought last September 2017 for over $1.5 million.
In U.S. court documents, Mashinchi’s lawyer said Mashinchi’s brother Navid would be running the business while his sibling is awaiting trial.
But someone answering the phones at the company this week said that “Navid no longer works here.” The woman referred calls to “Navid and Omid’s attorney,” but refused to provide a name for any lawyer.
“That I cannot help you with. Sorry,” she said before hanging up.
As of Friday, the company was still advertising one-, two- and three-bedroom “self-catered units, well-situated in Downtown Vancouver.”
Suites were being rented for hundreds a night through online sites Expedia and Booking.com.
All three of Mashinchi’s companies — Mashinchi Investments Ltd., Omid Mashinchi Personal Real Estate Corp. and MLUX Homes Inc. — list the offices of Royalty Group Realty at 1065 Seymour as their address.
Royalty Group office manager Homeyra Panah said Mashinchi no longer has any affiliation with the real estate company, but simply has a mailbox there.
“What happened is that when he returned his licence to the council, he still had his mailbox here,” she said. “We don’t have any idea why he would put all of his companies at the office address here after he resigned all of his licences.”
She said Mashinchi at one point had both a realtor’s licence and a property management licence and ran another business called 604 Rentals.
Mashinchi had recently been asked not to use Royalty’s address, she said, adding that she had heard about the U.S. charges.
“We saw on Google. I was Googling him. We had some landlords that were contacting the office,” she said.
So how could organized crime use condo leases to launder illicit proceeds?
Christine Duhaime, an anti-money laundering expert and lawyer, said leases or rental properties could be misused through “trade-based money laundering — where you inflate the price to get a fake invoice to then move money.”
For example, if a property rented for $10,000 a month, the landlord could actually put twice that amount into the bank as the rent, effectively laundering $10,000.
“There is no record in the sense that it is just a private contract between you and the landlord so nobody really knows who lives in what space or how much you are paying for rent,” Duhaime said. “If you are going to fabricate the prices of things, it is really hard to detect that the money was not legitimately earned.”
Unlike real estate agents, those involved in property leasing are not required to report suspicious transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, better known as Fintrac.
Fintrac communications officer Jamela Austria said that a recent federal government report recognized that there are other businesses not currently covered by money laundering laws that “play an integral role within the real estate sector.”
“These entities are in a unique position to gather and report information related to money laundering and terrorist financing,” she said. “The real estate sector consists of high-value financial transactions and high-risk clients, including individuals in vulnerable occupations and businesses.”
RCMP Chief Supt. Keith Finn said there is obvious concern about money laundering through the real estate sector in B.C.
“Whenever you have a quick increase in prices there is an opportunity there for the criminals among us to use the flipping of houses and purchase and disposal as means to launder their money,” he said.
Finn said “the biggest challenge” of organized criminals is how to clean their funds.
Like Duhaime, Finn said leasing could be used in “trade-based” laundering “if there is enough money exchanging hands on a monthly basis.”
Asked specifically about whether the RCMP in B.C. is working with U.S. law enforcement on the Mashinchi case, Finn said: “I would say we are interested stakeholders.”
“It is an intriguing file. It raises a number of questions,” he said.
Eby said the possibility of condo leasing being used in money laundering “is another example of why we need the federal government to join with us in this work.”
“We talked about the transnational aspect of this before. Usually we are talking about China, but here it’s the United States. We need the federal government involved to help us connect the dots with things that are happening internationally and to provide those resources to the RCMP and the Canada Revenue Agency.
Postmedia obtained a copy of the leasing agreement that Mashinchi Investment Ltd. signed with the owner of the luxury North Vancouver condo where Grewal was murdered on Dec. 22, 2017.
Mashinchi signed the two-year agreement in February 2016, listing another name as the tenant who would be occupying the premises.
The agreed-upon rent for the penthouse suite was $5,500 a month and Mashinchi provided post-dated cheques on a Bank of Montreal business account.
The agreement says that he is not to sublet the suite, assessed this year at just under $1.9 million, at any time without written approval.” Nor was he allowed to use the suite “as a short-term rental.”
Grewal, who was facing a manslaughter charge at the time of his murder, moved into the unit after he was released on strict bail conditions on Sept. 27, 2017. His name appears nowhere on the condo lease. He was killed inside the apartment on Dec. 22.
North Van condo where gangster Gavinder Grewal was murdered.FRANCIS GEORGIAN / PNGIHIT believes the murder of Gavinder Grewal, 30, was a targeted hit. Grewal was shot dead Dec. 22 in a residence in the 1500 block of Fern Street in North Vancouver.PNG FILES
Grewal’s Brothers Keepers gang is aligned to the Wolf Pack through the Red Scorpions. His murder remains unsolved.
One of Mashinchi’s Boston lawyers, Joseph Savage, declined to comment on the money laundering case when contacted by Postmedia.
HIs client is facing five charges related to separate transactions in January, July and August 2017 totalling almost US$237,000. The U.S. alleges Mashinchi was paid a commission to wire the money through his company’s bank account.
Details of Mashinchi’s life before Vancouver were laid out in court documents when he tried unsuccessfully to get bail in a Seattle courtroom after his April arrest.
He was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1982 and moved to Germany when he was a toddler “for his father’s business and because of the war between Iran and Iraq.”
His parents sent him to school in Victoria in 1999 and he moved to the Lower Mainland a year later. He has Iranian, German and Canadian citizenship, something U.S. prosecutors argued could make him a flight risk.
His parents moved from Germany to Sacramento in 2008, where his father now runs a contracting business. Mashinchi’s Seattle lawyer Michael Martin said in his submissions that his client could stay with his parents pending his trial and noted that he has no criminal record.
“There is no indication he would choose to flee the country and become a fugitive of the United States, particularly in light of his history and character,” Martin said.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler denied Mashinchi bail, saying he could apply again in Boston.
The “defendant poses a risk of non-appearance based on financial resources, possession of three passports, international ties, residence in Canada, and an immigration detainer. Defendant poses a risk of danger based on the nature of the alleged offence,” she said. “There does not appear to be any condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance at future court hearings while addressing the danger to other persons or the community.”
B.C.’s public safety minister says he has serious concerns about a new motorcycle club of Lower Mainland firefighters called Florian’s Knights that has been attending events with the Hells Angels.
“This is just disturbing on so many levels,” Mike Farnworth said after Postmedia obtained a photo of a founding member of the Knights posing with three Hells Angels.
Farnworth said firefighters face incredible danger on the job, made worse in recent years by “a rise in fires in homes where drug labs are located.”
“And many of those labs allegedly have links to the Hells Angels. So I find it more than a bit disturbing that you’ve got a motorcycle gang composed of firefighters associating with Hells Angels who may be making their job even more dangerous than it already is.”
Burnaby firefighter Nick Elmes, right, with members of the Hells Angels
Farnworth said he has asked his staff to look into the issue and report back to him.
The Knights are wearing a three-piece patch on the backs of their leather vests, meaning they sought permission from the Hells Angels when they were forming, retired police biker expert Brad Stephen told Postmedia.
Three-piece ‘patch’ of new firefighters biker club called Florian’s Knights.
Stephen, who was a firefighter before his long career with the Vancouver Police Department, said it’s disturbing that some firefighters want to associate with Hells Angels.
“What the Florian’s Knights have chosen to do is obviously seek permission and they’ve received permission from the Hells Angels to wear a three-piece patch and they go out of their way to associate, party, ride, commiserate with members of the Hells Angels and with members of support clubs of the Hells Angels,” Stephen said Monday. “In my opinion, that is a very disturbing thing.”
The Knights contact person, Nick Elmes, is a Burnaby firefighter, as are two others in the new club. There are also two New Westminster firefighters and a retired Vancouver firefighter.
Burnaby Fire Chief Joe Robertson said he also has concerns about the Knights and has met with the RCMP to discuss the issue.
“The city and the fire department do not condone any association of our members with the Hells Angels. We support the good work that all the rest of our firefighters do in the community,” Robertson said Monday. “This reflects really poorly on the good work that everybody else does.”
Some of the Knights have been wearing their vests, known as “colours” on their way to work, Robertson said.
“I conveyed my displeasure because they were riding to work in their biker colours and we have a legal opinion that says that they can actually do that,” he said.
“There are concerns. I share the same concerns that the police have.”
Elmes, who said he is a founding member of the Knights, said in an interview Monday that the club formed to raise money for charity and that no one should be concerned.
He admitted the Knights have been at events with Hells Angels but said those events were open to anyone to attend.
As for the photo of him with three Hells Angels, including Kelowna president Damiano Dipopolo, Elmes said he is a childhood friend of Dipopolo.
“I can’t help that they are at the same ride we are at,” Elmes said.
Elmes said the Knights advised the Hells Angels that they were starting their new club.
“I told them what I was planning on doing. I gave the whole motorcycle community a warning on what was going on before we started flying our colours,” Elmes said, adding that he asked the HA: “Do you have any issues with us doing this?”
Another social media comment obtained by Postmedia has a member of the HA-aligned Devil’s Army biker club in Campbell River thanking the Florian’s Knights for their recent hospitality.
Elmes said if the public has any concerns about his group “it is because the media and the cops are putting absolute lies in people’s heads.”
“I don’t think there should be a concern. Everyone is just riding, doing their thing. This isn’t Sons of Anarchy, where guys wearing their vests are committing crimes and murdering people,” he said of the TV show about a fictitious biker gang in California. “This is just guys on their bikes riding at charitable events.”
Florian’s Knights is a new motorcycle club consisting of some firefighters from Burnaby and New Westminster. But concerns have been raised over the Knights association with the Hells Angels.
Founding member Nick Elmes thinks those concerns are ridiculous, but admits he is a childhood friend of Damiano Dipopolo and posed with several HA members at a recent ride.
Here’s my story:
Founder of firefighters’ biker club poses with Hells
B.C.’s public safety minister says he has serious concerns about a new motorcycle club of Lower Mainland firefighters called Florian’s Knights that has been attending events with the Hells Angels.
“This is just disturbing on so many levels,” Mike Farnworth said after Postmedia obtained a photo of a founding member of the Knights posing with three Hells Angels.
Farnworth said firefighters face incredible danger on the job, made worse in recent years by “a rise in fires in homes where drug labs are located.”
“And many of those labs allegedly have links to the Hells Angels. So I find it more than a bit disturbing that you’ve got a motorcycle gang composed of firefighters associating with Hells Angels who may be making their job even more dangerous than it already is.”
Farnworth said he has asked his staff to look into the issue and report back to him.
The Knights are wearing a three-piece patch on the backs of their leather vests, meaning they sought permission from the Hells Angels when they were forming, retired police biker expert Brad Stephen told Postmedia.
Three-piece ‘patch’ of new firefighters biker club called Florian’s Knights.
Stephen, who was a firefighter before his long career with the Vancouver Police Department, said it’s disturbing that some firefighters want to associate with Hells Angels.
“What the Florian’s Knights have chosen to do is obviously seek permission and they’ve received permission from the Hells Angels to wear a three-piece patch and they go out of their way to associate, party, ride, commiserate with members of the Hells Angels and with members of support clubs of the Hells Angels,” Stephen said Monday. “In my opinion, that is a very disturbing thing.”
The Knights contact person, Nick Elmes, is a Burnaby firefighter, as are two others in the new club. There are also two New Westminster firefighters and a retired Vancouver firefighter.
Burnaby Fire Chief Joe Robertson said he also has concerns about the Knights and has met with the RCMP to discuss the issue.
“The city and the fire department do not condone any association of our members with the Hells Angels. We support the good work that all the rest of our firefighters do in the community,” Robertson said Monday. “This reflects really poorly on the good work that everybody else does.”
Some of the Knights have been wearing their vests, known as “colours” on their way to work, Robertson said.
“I conveyed my displeasure because they were riding to work in their biker colours and we have a legal opinion that says that they can actually do that,” he said.
“There are concerns. I share the same concerns that the police have.”
Elmes, who said he is a founding member of the Knights, said in an interview Monday that the club formed to raise money for charity and that no one should be concerned.
He admitted the Knights have been at events with Hells Angels but said those events were open to anyone to attend.
As for the photo of him with three Hells Angels, including Kelowna president Damiano Dipopolo, Elmes said he is a childhood friend of Dipopolo.
“I can’t help that they are at the same ride we are at,” Elmes said.
Elmes said the Knights advised the Hells Angels that they were starting their new club.
“I told them what I was planning on doing. I gave the whole motorcycle community a warning on what was going on before we started flying our colours,” Elmes said, adding that he asked the HA: “Do you have any issues with us doing this?”
Another social media comment obtained by Postmedia has a member of the HA-aligned Devil’s Army biker club in Campbell River thanking the Florian’s Knights for their recent hospitality.
Elmes said if the public has any concerns about his group “it is because the media and the cops are putting absolute lies in people’s heads.”
“I don’t think there should be a concern. Everyone is just riding, doing their thing. This isn’t Sons of Anarchy, where guys wearing their vests are committing crimes and murdering people,” he said of the TV show about a fictitious biker gang in California. “This is just guys on their bikes riding at charitable events.”
B.C.’s anti-gang agency says a new Metro Vancouver firefighters biker club with links to the Hells Angels raises serious issues.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Tuesday that the decision by some firefighters to form the Florian’s Knights and associate with the notorious biker gang puts themselves and other first responders at risk.
“The Hells Angels have a longtime involvement in both illegal marijuana grow operations and synthetic drug clandestine labs. This is troubling as well, given the dangers they pose to first responders, and firefighters in particular,” Winpenny said.
“The decision by a small group of firefighters to support a criminal organization involved in activities that endanger their brother and sister firefighters is concerning. By associating with the Hells Angels and other outlaw motorcycle gangs, they are potentially putting themselves and others at risk.”
Advanced Minister Melanie Mark with Florian’s Knights at May 10th MLA ride of the B.C. Coalition of Motorcyclists. Knights founder Nick Elmes is to the left of Mark.
Winpenny said CFSEU officers have spoken to some in the Knights to express the concerns of law enforcement.
Postmedia revealed Tuesday that some local firefighters had formed Florian’s Knights and attended charity rides and other events with the Hells Angels.
Knights founder Nick Elmes also posed for a photo with three Hells Angels.
Burnaby firefighter NIck Elmes, right, with members of the Hells Angels
Elmes defended his organization, saying they formed to do charity work and can’t help it if the Hells Angels attend some of the same public events.
But he admitted that he advised the Angels when he was forming his club and let them know the Knights would be adopting a three-piece patch for their leather vest — something police say can only be done with HA permission.
Winpenny said the events are not open to the public, as Elmes claimed.
“This is inaccurate and both presence and participation at these events, whether it’s funerals, OMG-sanctioned rides, or other rides are often the result of an invitation and represent support for the Hells Angels,” she said. “Money raised at these events flows to the Hells Angels.”
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said he has asked his staff to look into the issues raised by having public servants associating with a group the government considers a criminal organization.
Last month, Florian’s Knights attended a rally in Victoria as part of the B.C. Coalition of Motorcyclists.
Elmes and others in his group were photographed with Advanced Education Minister Melanie Mark outside the B.C. Legislature.
Mark said in a statement that she “certainly had no reason to think that there would be anyone in attendance who associates with a criminal organization.”
“Anyone who associates with gangs and organized crime is putting themselves and their friends and families at risk,” Mark said. “We’re following up with the organizers to raise concerns.”
The BCCOM has held the MLA ride for 26 years.
Meanwhile, Postmedia has learned that the Knights have recently opened a clubhouse in North Burnaby.
Elmes and another member bought the house in the 5400-block Parker Street in January for $1.65 million, B.C. property records show.
Elmes advertised on Facebook in March hat his biker club would be hosting an event on the last Thursday of every month at the house, though he said people had to direct message him to get the address.
Suit of armour inside the Florian’s Knights clubhouse posted on Facebook
Elmes owns a second residence in North Burnaby a few blocks away from the new clubhouse, assessed this year for $1.76 million.
Hells Angels spokesman Rick Ciarniello did not respond to requests for an interview about his group’s relationship with the Knights.
Hells Angels expert Brad Stephen, a retired Vancouver police officer and one-time firefighter, said in an interview that firefighters are held in high regard in the community and that the Knights are damaging that reputation.
“There is a high degree of public trust and public respect that is bestowed upon your position as a firefighter in the community. You are required to respond to rescues, respond to medical emergencies in the middle of the night. You go into people’s homes. You go into people’s businesses. You are often required to go into secure facilities and you are exposed to confidential scenarios and confidential information,” Stephen said. “You work hand in hand with police agencies …. all of sudden now there is a group of firefighters who have decided to form the Florian’s Knights and to ingratiate themselves with the Hells Angels.”
My colleague Stephanie Ip covered the tragic double murder of two teens in Surrey as I was out in Abbotsford at the University of the Fraser Valley for convocation ceremonies.
They were just boys – Jaskarn “Jason” Singh Jhutty, 16, and Jaskaran “Jesse” Singh Bhangal, 17.
One was in grade 10 and the other in grade 11. I can’t imagine what their families are going through today. It is beyond tragic. It is devastating.
It is reminiscent of the terrible double murder of high school students Dilsher Gill and Joseph Randay in Abbotsford in May 2009 – a crime that remains unsolved.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to steer young people away from this deadly path.
Here is the news release of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team:
June 5, 2018
IHIT File: 2018-845 Surrey File: 2018-80104
Fatal shooting in Surrey leaves two dead Victims Identified
Surrey: The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has taken conduct of a double homicide investigation in Surrey, B.C.
On June 4, 2018 just after 10:30 p.m., the Surrey RCMP received a report of two bodies found in the area of 192 Street and 40 Avenue. When officers arrived, they found two unresponsive males lying roadside with gunshot wounds. The victims were declared deceased at the scene and IHIT took conduct of the investigation.
Earlier at 9:46 p.m., the Surrey RCMP was alerted to a burning vehicle in the area of 184 Street and 29A Avenue. IHIT would like to speak with anyone that has information about this vehicle.
At 11 p.m., the Surrey RCMP received a call of a second burning vehicle in the area of 177 Street and 93 Avenue. Investigators have determined that this burnt vehicle was a Honda Accord and would like to speak with anyone that has information about it.
To further the ongoing investigation and to determine their activities leading up to the homicides, IHIT is confirming that 16-year-old Jaskarn Singh Jhutty and 17-year-old Jaskaran Singh Bhangal, both residents of Surrey, were the victims of homicide. It is early in the investigation but investigators believe this was a targeted incident.
We believe there are people who have information about what happened to Jaskarn and Jaskaran last night, says Corporal Frank Jang of IHIIT. Please reach out and speak with IHIT so that we can hold those responsible to account.
Anyone with information is asked to call the IHIT information line at 1-877-551- IHIT (4448), or by email at ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
Should you wish to remain anonymous, please contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
Homicide investigators have released surveillance photos of two men believed to be involved in the murder last December of Brothers Keepers gang boss Gavinder Grewal.
Cpl. Frank Jang, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said IHIT has “gathered significant evidence and is looking to identify individuals involved in the murder.”
“Surveillance footage has identified two vehicles that investigators believe are associated to the murder of Mr. Grewal,” Jang said.
Grewal was found dead in his apartment on Dec. 23, 2017 “with injuries consistent with homicide.” He was killed in a penthouse suite of a North Vancouver apartment where he had been living since getting bail on a manslaughter charged in September 2017.
North Van condo where gangster Gavinder Grewal was murdered.
Jang said Grewal “was known to police and associated to gang activity.”
In fact, Grewal’s the Brothers Keepers had a major internal conflict with former associates turning on each other.
IHIT believes the murder of Gavinder Grewal, 30, was a targeted hit. Grewal was shot dead in a residence in the 1500 block of Fern Street in North Vancouver.
“Investigators believe Mr. Grewal’s murder was targeted and linked to other gang violence in the Lower Mainland,” Jang said.
The suspects are described as South Asian, one between 20 to 25 years old wearing a black jacket and a white shirt. The second is described as slightly older, between 25 and 30, with a beard and wearing a toque and a dark jacket.
The two men were in the Nissan Titan, Jang said.
“We are asking the public’s help in identifying these two males or anyone associated to the Lexus RX350 or the Nissan Titan,” he said. “There are people who have information about what happened to Mr. Grewal. We urge anyone with information to please come forward and speak with IHIT so that we can hold those responsible to account.”
Anyone with information is asked contact IHIT at 1-877-551- 4448 or ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
I just learned that the suspects likely got into the building by drilling holes through a fire door, allowing them to thread something through the hole and push on the inside bar. That gave them access to the stairwell where there was no camera.
