In December, Bicky Khakh was with his associate when the other man was shot at Lansdowne Mall.

Khakh was uninjured, but the other man, Harp Dhaliwal, suffered serious injuries.

But Khakh wasn’t as lucky Friday when the 30-year-old was shot to death in Surrey about 7:15 p.m.

Surrey RCMP said it received 911 calls about the shooting in the 13900-block of 58A Avenue.

“Upon police attendance, an adult victim was located suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite all attempts to revive the individual the victim succumbed to their injuries,”
Cpl. Elenore Sturko said in a news release.

Sturko did not identify the victim, but several sources told Postmedia that it was Khakh who died.

Sturko said that after the shooting police were also alerted to a vehicle on fire in the area of King George Boulevard and Colebrook Road.

“It is not yet known if these occurrences are linked,” she said.

“The area surrounding the scenes of both of these incidents will be cordoned off for a significant amount of time.  The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has been called and will be working in partnership with the Surrey RCMP Major Crime Section.”

Anyone with information should contact IHIT at 1-877-551-4448 or ihitinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.

Khakh was a one-time associate of Manny Buttar, who had more recently been aligned with the Brothers Keepers gang.

He was arrested by Vancouver Police in 2010 in a crack-down related to a south slope gang conflict.

In 2012, Khakh was handed a two-year conditional sentence for break and enter after being convicted with another then-Buttar associate.

Dhaliwal, his friend injured in the December shooting, is the brother of Barinder (Shrek) Dhaliwal, an Abbotsford gangster sentenced to a year in jail last June after being seen tossing a firearm into some bushes in 2016.

More to come….

kbolan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kbolan

A trial begins in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday for Jamie Bacon, a former Abbotsford resident, who is charged with counselling an associate to murder another associate between Nov. 30, 2008, and Jan. 2, 2009. The man survived the alleged murder plot. There are several sweeping publication bans in place for the jury trial, which is scheduled to run for 10 weeks.

1. Former Abbotsford resident James Kyle Bacon is charged with one count of counselling someone to commit a murder.

2. Bacon, who was born in 1985, was charged in the case in 2014 in relation to allegations dating to Dec. 31, 2008.

3. The case will be heard at the Vancouver Law Courts before Justice Catherine Wedge and a 14-person jury.

4. The trial is expected to continue over 10 weeks.

5. Bacon is represented by lawyers Kimberly Eldred and Kevin Drolet, while the prosecution team is led by Joe Bellows.

Sun Run training with a group has so many benefits and you meet wonderful people who support each other through the tougher points in the 13-week program.

The training helps you establish an easy-to-follow routine with your group run being the highlight of your running week. (Some in our Hillcrest group like running together so much that they have decided to do their two other training runs with others in the group as well!)

But for me, one of the most important things the program assists me in doing is a proper warm-up and post-run stretch.

For whatever reason, I have always skimped on these pre/post run musts. My thought process has been to head out the door — usually in the evening after a long day at work — just to get the run over with. So there has been little in the way of warm-up exercises. I always intend to stretch afterwards, but get easily distracted by some messages on my phone or a pile of dirty laundry that suddenly can’t wait.

After ankle and hamstring injuries in 2018, I am trying to commit to doing things right, knowing it is likely the only way I can stay injury-free and get through my fifth straight Sun Run.

Our Hillcrest leader Angela Wagner has provided lots of helpful advice, saying this week that “functional range of motion may be more important than flexibility” in staying injury-free.

Angela says that before a run, dynamic stretching is better, including butt kicks and walking with high knees, to get the heart rate up. Afterwards, we focus on stretching those areas that get tight — the calves, the hamstrings, hip flexors and more.

Leading our Run 10k sub-group at Hillcrest are Michelle and Jessica, both UBC kinesiology students. They not only take a lot of extra time to go through stretching exercises with us after our runs, they clearly explain what each stretch does and why it is so important. I find that extra information really helpful in pushing me to keep up the proper pre/post routines during the week.

And it must be working — week 4 and not a hint of a strain or injury!

Jamie Bacon ordered the New Year’s Eve hit on a close friend in 2008 because he was concerned his drug trade associate was using oxycontin, “having relationships with young girls” and not focused on their joint business, B.C. Supreme Court heard on Monday.

Prosecutor Joe Bellows laid out the Crown’s anticipated evidence in his opening statements at the trial of Bacon, who is charged with unlawfully counselling a would-be hitman to kill Dennis Karbovanec more than a decade ago.

Karbovanec survived the attempt on his life and got himself to Mission Memorial Hospital that night. A nurse who saw him will testify that he yelled “I’ve been shot” as he arrived, Bellows said.

Bellows told jurors in his opening statement that the gunman, identified only as “CD” due to a publication ban, would testify that he agreed to do the shooting because he owed Bacon “many thousands of dollars” for drugs he had purchased.

But Bellows said that CD was “shocked” Bacon wanted to kill Karbovanec as he thought they were “close friends.”

CD met with another Bacon associate dubbed “AB”, who will also testify about the murder plot, Bellows said.

Both AB and CD “had an extensive involvement in the drug trafficking trade and that by 2008, both had formed what could be regarded as a working relationship with Mr. Bacon,” Bellows said.

“You will come to know that both AB and CD in 2008 were very serious and were very dangerous criminals. There is no question about that.”

But he also told jurors that he would present other evidence from police officers and civilian witnesses that would corroborate the testimony of the cooperating criminals.

Bellows said CD would testify that he wanted to use his favourite gun — a .40-calibre Glock, but that Bacon insisted that Bacon’s own .45-calibre Glock be used to kill his friend.

Bacon instructed AB and CD to lure Karbovanec out on Dec. 31 by telling him they were all going to rob another drug trafficker. The group met at Mission Rotary Sports Park, Bellows said, then drove in separate vehicles to the end of a cul-de-sac on Bench Ave.

CD pulled out his gun and fired 10 shots, the Crown said.

“At one point, his Glock jammed and he had to clear it” and live rounds were ejected, Bellows said.

One bullet grazed Karbovanec’s head, while another hit him in the lower back.

“Despite having been shot, he escaped by scrambling down the embankment from Bench Avenue,” Bellows said.

Bellows said there were five people at the shooting — Karbovanec, AB, CD, and associates Edward Felix and Matthew Johnston — but only AB and CD would be called as witnesses.

After Karbovanec fled, so did Johnston, while AB, CD and Felix took off in a car stolen earlier in the day, Bellows said.

Both AB and CD would testify that the car was abandoned in another cul-de-sac at the end of Swift Dr. and lit on fire, the Crown said.

The three occupants fled on foot down a pathway as CD tossed the gun and cartridges into Windebank Creek.

Police were later called to the hospital, which made Karbovanec “very upset.” He was wearing a bullet-proof vest at the time.

Karbovanec was discharged within hours of the shooting, but had to return on Jan. 19, 2009 to have the bullet from his lower back removed, Bellows said.

CD knew he had “bungled” the shooting and was worried about both the reaction of Bacon and of Karbovanec.

“Mr. Bacon told him that he wasn’t surprised that Mr. CD had missed because he hadn’t done anything like that before,” Bellows said. “Mr. Bacon told CD that he should have walked right up to him and put a bullet in his head.”

Bellows said a Mission mom and her toddler were walking along a pathway about two weeks after the shooting when the child picked up some metal cylinder objects.

He said the items were both the live and spent cartridges used in the shooting.

A rusted-out Glock handgun was found just last year by another child playing in the creek area, Bellows said.

Justice Catherine Wedge is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks.

There are several sweeping publication bans in place.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

Related

• Live: Jamie Bacon murder plot trial begins today
• Five things to know about the Jamie Bacon trial

It was an interesting first day at Jamie Bacon’s jury trial on a charge of counselling an associate to kill Dennis Karbovanec. Karbovanec survived the Dec. 31, 2008 attempt on his life. He will not be a witness in this case, Crown prosecutor Joe Bellows said Monday.

But Bellows did outline the evidence he expects to call in the 10-week trial. There are many bans in this case, meaning some things I have previously reported I can’t report for now. I will delete any comments that violate the bans that are in place.

Here’s my story:

Jamie Bacon ordered the New Year’s Eve hit on a close friend in 2008 because he was concerned his drug trade associate was using oxycontin, “having relationships with young girls” and not focused on their joint business, B.C. Supreme Court heard on Monday.

Prosecutor Joe Bellows laid out the Crown’s anticipated evidence in his opening statements at the trial of Bacon, who is charged with unlawfully counselling a would-be hitman to kill Dennis Karbovanec more than a decade ago.

Karbovanec survived the attempt on his life and got himself to Mission Memorial Hospital that night. A nurse who saw him will testify that he yelled “I’ve been shot” as he arrived, Bellows said.

Bellows told jurors in his opening statement that the gunman, identified only as “CD” due to a publication ban, would testify that he agreed to do the shooting because he owed Bacon “many thousands of dollars” for drugs he had purchased.

But Bellows said that CD was “shocked” Bacon wanted to kill Karbovanec as he thought they were “close friends.”

CD met with another Bacon associate dubbed “AB”, who will also testify about the murder plot, Bellows said.

Both AB and CD “had an extensive involvement in the drug trafficking trade and that by 2008, both had formed what could be regarded as a working relationship with Mr. Bacon,” Bellows said.

“You will come to know that both AB and CD in 2008 were very serious and were very dangerous criminals. There is no question about that.”

But he also told jurors that he would present other evidence from police officers and civilian witnesses that would corroborate the testimony of the cooperating criminals.

Bellows said CD would testify that he wanted to use his favourite gun — a .40-calibre Glock, but that Bacon insisted that Bacon’s own .45-calibre Glock be used to kill his friend.

Bacon instructed AB and CD to lure Karbovanec out on Dec. 31 by telling him they were all going to rob another drug trafficker. The group met at Mission Rotary Sports Park, Bellows said, then drove in separate vehicles to the end of a cul-de-sac on Bench Ave.

CD pulled out his gun and fired 10 shots, the Crown said.

“At one point, his Glock jammed and he had to clear it” and live rounds were ejected, Bellows said.

One bullet grazed Karbovanec’s head, while another hit him in the lower back.

“Despite having been shot, he escaped by scrambling down the embankment from Bench Avenue,” Bellows said.

Bellows said there were five people at the shooting — Karbovanec, AB, CD, and associates Edward Felix and Matthew Johnston — but only AB and CD would be called as witnesses.

After Karbovanec fled, so did Johnston, while AB, CD and Felix took off in a car stolen earlier in the day, Bellows said.

Both AB and CD would testify that the car was abandoned in another cul-de-sac at the end of Swift Dr. and lit on fire, the Crown said.

The three occupants fled on foot down a pathway as CD tossed the gun and cartridges into Windebank Creek.

Police were later called to the hospital, which made Karbovanec “very upset.” He was wearing a bullet-proof vest at the time.

Karbovanec was discharged within hours of the shooting, but had to return on Jan. 19, 2009 to have the bullet from his lower back removed, Bellows said.

CD knew he had “bungled” the shooting and was worried about both the reaction of Bacon and of Karbovanec.

“Mr. Bacon told him that he wasn’t surprised that Mr. CD had missed because he hadn’t done anything like that before,” Bellows said. “Mr. Bacon told CD that he should have walked right up to him and put a bullet in his head.”

Bellows said a Mission mom and her toddler were walking along a pathway about two weeks after the shooting when the child picked up some metal cylinder objects.

He said the items were both the live and spent cartridges used in the shooting.

A rusted-out Glock handgun was found just last year by another child playing in the creek area, Bellows said.

Justice Catherine Wedge is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks.

There are several sweeping publication bans in place.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

On the afternoon of June 26, 2015, suspected drug traffickers Michael Reg Whieldon and David Bjorn Johnson arrived in Whieldon’s pickup truck at a supposed cosmetics manufacturer in southeast Vancouver.

Whieldon got out of his 2010 Dodge Ram pickup and carried a black-and-blue bag to the business on East Kent Avenue South, in a commercial building near the north arm of the Fraser River. According to police surveillance, about 10 minutes later, Whieldon returned to the truck empty-handed and the pair drove away.

Cash seized in a Vancouver police investigation dubbed Project Trunkline into drug trafficking that overlapped with money-laundering investigation E-Pirate by the RCMP.

That same day, according to a police report, the owner of the supposed cosmetics manufacturer, Maxim Poon Wong, also known as Nelson Wong, delivered more than $280,000 to a suspected underground bank in Richmond, called Silver International.

A months-long Vancouver Police Department investigation in 2015 concluded that the supposed cosmetics manufacturer, called Ritzy Products, was being used as a branch for Silver International, which is alleged to have washed hundreds of millions of drug money through wealthy Asian gamblers, who picked up bags of cash in Vancouver and deposited money in underground Chinese banks.

David Bjorn Johnson (left) and Michael Reg Whieldon (right) were arrested in a 2015 Vancouver police drug-trafficking investigation, called Project Trunkline.

Wong delivered nearly $3.9 million to Silver International during a 4½-month period in 2015, according to a police analysis of seized ledgers filed in court.

In 2015, the Vancouver police investigation, called Project Trunkline, and a separate RCMP investigation into Silver International called E-Pirate, led to the arrest of at least 17 people, including Whieldon, Johnson and Wong. The investigations also led to the seizure of more than $3 million in cash, mostly $20-bill bundles wrapped with rubber bands; vehicles, including a Corvette Stingray; jewelry and other valuables; and drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and precursors that are used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

None of the lengthy police surveillance work, the arrests or the seizures has resulted in alleged drug traffickers or money launderers standing trial on criminal charges.

Another Vancouver police investigation, Project Tar, that similarly to Project Trunkline overlapped with E-Pirate, “and may have been a bigger case” say police, also did not result in charges.

The laundering of the large amounts of cash generated by drug trafficking is not limited to one organized crime group, and includes Asian gangs, as already reported, but also those with connections to groups such as the Hells Angels, and Mexican and South American cartels.

A brick of cocaine seized in Vancouver police investigation Project Trunkline into drug trafficking that overlapped with money-laundering investigation E-Pirate by the RCMP.

The findings from a Postmedia investigation — gleaned from hundreds of pages of B.C. Supreme Court civil documents, provincial criminal court transcripts, criminal court record searches and responses from police and Crown prosecutors — comes as increasing attention is put on money laundering in British Columbia and concern rises over the apparent inability to prosecute alleged perpetrators.

Christian Leuprecht, a Royal Military College of Canada professor, identified Canada’s small number of money laundering investigations and prosecutions as a problem to a federal parliamentary committee, saying it is indicative of a lack of real and sustained support by both the political and law enforcement leadership in Canada.

“We are just not getting a handle on financial crime and illicit financial flows in this country,” Leuprecht told Postmedia. “The question is how come nobody ever goes to jail for it and should we do better? Can we do better?”

The issue has the attention of B.C. Attorney General David Eby, who, when he responded to criminal charges being stayed in the Silver International case, said the inability to prosecute money-laundering is a crisis and there is an urgent need to fix it.

That case — where as much as $220 million a year is alleged to have been laundered — is believed by the attorney general’s office to be the largest money-laundering case in B.C.

Unlike in some provinces, police cannot lay criminal charges in B.C. without approval. That is in the hands of either federal or B.C. prosecutors, depending on the case, who base their decision on evidence provided by police.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada declined an interview on the failed E-Pirate prosecution of alleged-money launderer Silver International, but in a written response said the E-Pirate file was closed and “no other individuals or companies were charged.”

The federal prosecution service did not respond to questions about why other charges did not come forward from the E-Pirate investigation. The service also did not respond to questions from on whether there are challenges in these types of investigations and prosecutions such as in gathering evidence, or whether there were other reasons for not pursuing criminal charges.

Gold seized at alleged underground bank Silver International in October 2015 as part of RCMP E-Pirate money-laundering investigation.

“There are challenges in most prosecutions. It is impossible to generalize the challenges by prosecution type,” spokeswoman Nathalie Houle said in a brief written response.

Federal RCMP also declined an interview on the E-Pirate investigation and the challenges surrounding money-laundering investigations.

In a written response, RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Marie Damian did say that money-laundering and financial crime cases undertaken by the RCMP’s federal policing units are increasingly complex, involving multiple domestic and foreign agencies that gather information and evidence from a variety of sources.

“We appreciate how difficult it is not being given the full picture; however, for privacy and operational reasons, there are times it would be inappropriate for the RCMP to release information relating to criminal investigations,” said Damian.

Vancouver police and Alberta police forces did not have a clear explanation of why no criminal charges resulted from the Project Trunkline investigation.

Vancouver police said they were assisting an investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team, an multi-force unit created to combat organized and serious crime. But Alberta police said that Trunkline was a Vancouver police investigation.

Mike Tucker, a spokesman for the Alberta team, said the investigation took place mostly in B.C. and all intelligence they gathered was forwarded to Vancouver police.

Vancouver police Supt. Mike Porteous, in command of investigative services, said it was an Alberta decision on who to prosecute — and the B.C. figures were not prosecuted. “I don’t even know why they decided that,” he said.

Bundles of $20 bills seized in October 2015 as part of RCMP E-Pirate investigation into money laundering at alleged underground Richmond bank, Silver International.

• • •

A Vancouver couple accused of money laundering at Silver International, Jian Jun Zhu and Caixuan Qin, were set for several weeks of preliminary hearings in 2019 in Richmond provincial court, but the federal prosecutors stayed the criminal charges unexpectedly and without explanation in November last year.

Court transcripts show there were concerns early by judges hearing preliminary matters about a delay in getting to trial. Twice there was inadvertent disclosure of materials not meant to be seen by the defence.

Others arrested in the three major investigations — E-Pirate, Trunkline and Tar — were not even charged.

Caixuan Qin, whose criminal charges for money laundering were stayed in November 2018 in relation to an alleged underground bank, Silver International, in Richmond.

In August 2015, two suspected money couriers were arrested near Merritt, as part of the RCMP’s E-Pirate investigation, with nearly $1 million dollars in the trunk of their car, but did not face criminal charges.

In October 2015, another alleged customer of Silver International, Stephen Hai Peng Chen, also known as Hoy Pang Chan, accused of depositing $5.31 million in the underground bank Silver International and withdrawing $2.27 million during a 4½ month period, was arrested but also has not faced criminal charges.

Whieldon, arrested as part of the Trunkline investigation, was considered a high-level drug importer, specifically from Mexico, according to court documents.

Police searched his 31^st-floor Coal Harbour apartment, seizing more than $16,000 in cash, including U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos and Iraqi dinars, according to court documents. Also seized were 11 cellphones, three money counters and a handgun. In an earlier arrest of Whieldon during the investigation, $40,000 was seized from a backpack that tested positive for cocaine residue, according to court documents.

According to sources, the Trunkline investigation started after police in Alberta documented the movement of drugs between B.C. and Alberta allegedly by people connected to La Familia, a Mexican cartel with close ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

According to court documents, one of those that Whieldon was allegedly doing business with, John-Paul Tate Teti, met with full-patch Hells Angel member Chad Wilson on the side of a road in Langley in November 2015 just before Teti was arrested. (Wilson was murdered in November of last year).

A police search of Teti’s car found about one kilogram of marijuana in a white boutique bag and a white box given to him by Wilson just before the arrest, according to police surveillance from Project Trunkline filed in court.

Whieldon was considered close to Hells Angel Bob Green, an influential member of the biker gang who died in a Langley shooting in October 2016, say sources.

Wong, the owner of the supposed cosmetic manufacturer Ritzy Products and suspected as acting as a branch of alleged money launderer Silver International, was arrested on Oak Street in September 2015. Police found more than $225,000 in cash, most of it in $20 bills in a brown box in his pickup, according to court documents. There was also a Post-it note marked “Mike Whieldon” in Wong’s pants pocket.

Wong has been recorded in RCMP databases as being linked to the Yellow Triangle Boys gang and a triad associate.

Maxim Poon Wong, also known as Nelson Wong, was not criminally charged following an investigation into drug trafficking that overlapped with a money laundering investigation of alleged underground bank Silver International in Richmond.

According to court records, some of those arrested, including Qin, Zhu, Whieldon, Johnson and Wong, who now face forfeiture of money and assets in civil cases launched by the B.C. government, deny they were involved in drug trafficking or money laundering and say that the search and seizures were improper and violated their constitutional rights. Others, such as Chan, have not responded to the civil forfeiture suits, which contain allegations not proven in court.

The threshold for proving a civil claim is lower than for a criminal conviction, a balance of probabilities instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to Porteous, the Vancouver police superintendent, the technical knowledge of the police in conducting these investigations has progressed and is very sophisticated.

Porteous argued that getting charges in complex cases such as money laundering is not a policing issue but a prosecution issue.

As a result of precedent-setting decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada — on full disclosure of evidence and new deadlines for prosecutions — there is additional pressure on the entire criminal justice system in bringing these cases to court, said Porteous.

The volume of material that has to be disclosed has become so huge in major investigations involving dozens of officers that even after a suspect is arrested, said Porteous, “we would still have to maintain up to 20 people for another year just to service the case for secondary disclosure.”

Added Porteous: “Cases now have to be airtight, perfect cases. … There is no accident you keep seeing the big cases not going forward.”

Porteus said it’s these problems that bogged down the Tar investigation and resulted in it not getting to the charge approval stage.

A retired senior RCMP officer, who spoke to Postmedia on condition of anonymity, noted that money laundering is a problem countries all over the world are struggling to tackle.

However, the former officer acknowledged that police resources are a factor, troublesome when money-laundering cases are so complex.

According to the retired officer, the RCMP’s federal serious and organized crime unit is falling apart with a 37 to 40 per cent understaffing, which dates to 2011 when, under federal cuts, the RCMP re-organized federal policing units to be accountable to Ottawa instead of provincial RCMP leaders. “All the horsepower has left federal policing,” said the former cop.

Leuprecht, the Royal Military College professor, said given that money-laundering investigations are complex and require special skills and co-ordination with Crown counsels, Canada must start by revamping federal policing.

Leuprecht, and an expert in policing, security and defence issues, suggests that two separate dedicated federal police forces are needed if financial and cyber crime are to be properly investigated and successfully prosecuted.

• • •

The Financial Action Task Force, an international organization that sets anti-money laundering standards, has highlighted Canada’s lack of successful prosecution of money laundering.

A 2016 task force evaluation report of Canada found that law enforcement results “are not commensurate with money-laundering risks.” The report noted there were a high percentage of charges being withdrawn or stayed.

“The fact that Canada only led 35 prosecutions and obtained 12 convictions in single-led (money laundering) cases between 2010 and 2014 is a concern,” stated the report by money-laundering experts from the International Monetary Fund and France, Italy, Ireland, Brazil and Hong Kong.

A review by Postmedia of money-laundering criminal cases prosecuted in B.C. provincial and B.C. Supreme Court dating back 10 years shows the most significant and recent case failed to get a conviction. A provincial court judge ruled in 2014 that in the case of allegations of laundering $24 million through a currency exchange, the evidence had not established the money was from the proceeds of crime, specifically drug trafficking.

Money counting machines sezied from alleged undeground bank Silver International in Richmond as part of E-Pirate investigation by RCMP.

The B.C. Prosecution Service said since 2002, 50 money laundering charge reports were forwarded to Crown counsel, resulting in 34 people being charged with at least one count of money laundering and 10 people being found guilty. The federal prosecution service said it did not keep such statistics.

Donald Sorochan, a Vancouver lawyer who helped set up a 2016 conference on money laundering in Vancouver, says an element of complication is added by the fact that a charge of money laundering must prove the underlying crime.

However, Sorochan, who has both defended and prosecuted criminal cases, said he believes there is a tendency for investigations to produce a huge amount of paper and then the prosecutor “opines” on whether it meets the test to go to trial.

“I think that’s crazy,” said Sorochan, who has expertise on managing complex cases. “I think you can easily discern potential charges and provide guidance so that the police agencies don’t have to write investigative reports that are a book — but rather can focus in on specific charges that are apparent relatively early and what can be done to prove those charges.”

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

twitter.com/gordon_hoekstra

kbolan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kbolan

Over the past decade, more than a dozen B.C. residents have been charged and convicted in the United States of money laundering.

Canadians have faced more justice south of the border for cleaning illicit profits than they have at home, including Ariel Savein, who was moving cash for a Mexican cartel, and Omid Mashinchi, who pleaded guilty last year in Boston to laundering B.C. drug money,

Police experts say that sometimes it’s more effective to turn over evidence they have collected in Canada to their U.S. counterparts, who have a better chance of conviction.

In fact, a Postmedia investigation has revealed that successful money laundering prosecutions in B.C. are rare.

But some lawyers who specialize in extradition believe Canadians accused of committing cross-border crimes like money laundering or drug trafficking should be held accountable in this country.

At least two B.C. men are still in Canada despite being charged years ago with laundering cash in Washington state. Trevor Jones, twin brother of full-patch Hells Angel Randy Jones, was charged in 2011 with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, as well as money laundering. Neither Canadian nor American authorities could say this week whether an extradition request has been made.

And gang associate Glenn Sheck is alleged to have laundered millions in the U.S. and Canada between 2007 and 2012. He was ordered committed for extradition in November 2017. Sheck has filed an appeal, which is set to be heard on April 4.

Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said B.C. investigators inevitably work with their international counterparts when probing organized criminals involved in cross-border crime.

And he said the Americans have a wider array of laws related to money laundering and other major crimes, allowing for more success in complex prosecutions.

“It is more difficult to prosecute international drug trafficking and laundering in Canada than it is in the United States or Australia or in these other places where these tentacles reach,” Porteous said. “We routinely share investigative information with other agencies, including international agencies.”

Vancouver police aided the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in its investigation of Savein, who ended up being extradited to California where he pleaded guilty in 2015. He was one of several Canadian money couriers used by the Sinaloa and La Familia cartels to collect millions owed to the gangs by B.C. drug traffickers.

Savein was caught after dropping off $811,850 stuffed in a duffel bag in the parking lot of what was then a Rona store near Grandview Highway. Two Mexican men living in Vancouver delivered more than $6 million in B.C. drug cash to their cartel in the same case.

Metro Vancouver lawyer Gary Botting has represented clients who’ve been extradited to the U.S. to face money laundering and other charges. He believes that if even a part of the alleged offence has been committed in Canada, B.C. residents should be prosecuted on this side of the border.

He said federal Justice Department officials are supposed to review requests for extradition to see if the case in question should be prosecuted in Canada.

But Botting said “never have I heard of a (Canadian) prosecutor taking over the case.”

“Canada has shirked its duty, frankly, in terms of not prosecuting up here,” Botting said.

He said he always makes the argument in extradition hearings that B.C. residents should be prosecuted in a Canadian jurisdiction if the crime occurred at least in part in Canada.

The Financial Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre or Fintrac, Canada’s financial intelligence-gathering agency, conducted a review of money-laundering court prosecutions between 2000 and 2014.

The review, obtained under Canada’s freedom of information laws, found that proceeds of crime were almost entirely generated by drug-related offences and fraud. In fact, most of the B.C. residents convicted in the U.S. of money laundering – like United Nations gang founder Clay Roueche – were involved in drug trafficking.

Roueche pleaded guilty almost a decade ago to heading a massive international drug operation and to laundering the ring’s dirty money. U.S. agents seized over $2 million U.S. during their investigation into Roueche and his associates, which paralleled a Canadian probe by B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.

Canadians have used a variety of methods for moving drug cash across the border, according to a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. court files — including Bitcoin purchases, wire transfers and cash secreted in hidden compartments in vehicles.

Mashinchi, a Wolf Pack associate who was sentenced in November to two years in prison, transferred hundreds of thousands in U.S. funds from his Vancouver bank to a bank in Boston, knowing the money was “derived from drug trafficking,” U.S. documents said.

Richmond businessman Vincent Ramos, who is to be sentenced in San Diego next month, laundered $80 million he got from criminal organizations using bitcoin and shell companies.

He pleaded guilty in October of facilitating the transnational importation and distribution of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine around the world through the sale of encrypted devices.

John Mohammadi pleaded guilty in 2010 to bulk cash smuggling after Washington border patrol agents found $350,000 U.S. stuffed into vacuum-sealed bags in a secret compartment in his cases.

But it was Canadian border guards who first found the compartment, months earlier, when Mohammadi was returning to B.C. Inside the compartment was a key fob and a Bank of America debit card in the name of a North Vancouver drug trafficker. They didn’t tell Mohammadi they had found it, but passed the information to their U.S. counterparts.

Porteous, the Vancouver police superintendent, said ultimately police want to get at criminal networks even “if for whatever reason a case is not prosecutable in Canada.” That means sharing intelligence with police and related agencies in the U.S. and internationally.

“I am in the public safety business. Money laundering is a threat to the public. Drug trafficking is a threat to the public. Weapons trafficking is a threat to the public. And all of the derivative violence that is a result of those activities is a threat to the public. So anything we can do to mitigate that threat, we do,” he said.

kbolan@postmedia.com

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

Ariel Savein in 2003 in Vancouver. He’s pleaded guilty to laundering cash for a Mexican cartel.

Clay Roueche at Coleman Prison, Florida.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby revealed Monday his government’s second review of money laundering, this one studying real estate, is also examining the lack of money-laundering prosecutions.

Postmedia published the results of an investigation that showed successful money-laundering prosecutions in B.C. are rare and convictions of B.C. residents are more likely in the U.S.

“It confirms some of what I have heard anecdotally from people involved in law enforcement … that it is difficult, if not impossible, to get convictions for money laundering in Canada,” Eby said Monday of the findings.

“And there is a concern that some of the prosecutions are being farmed out to the United States, instead of going ahead in Canada where they should have gone ahead, because of that,” said Eby.

The first independent report by Peter German, a former RCMP deputy commissioner, was released in June 2018 and concluded money from organized crime was being laundered through Lower Mainland casinos.

Eby then commissioned German to examine money laundering in the real-estate, horse racing and luxury-car sectors, with a report due by the end of March.

On Monday, Eby said, he has already asked German as part of his second review to determine why there are few money-laundering prosecutions, including whether there is a lack of investigative and/or prosecutorial capacity.

“I gave (German) examples of specific cases where it appeared that other countries were well ahead of Canada in knowing what was going on — and prosecuting cases,” said Eby. “It is a very significant concern of mine.”

Police and experts say the reasons for the lack of prosecutions include issues such as availability of resources and expertise, case management problems, setting of priorities and difficulty in proving money laundering is tied to criminal activities.

But it also includes challenges, said police, related to the huge amounts of information that must be disclosed to the defence, as well as new deadlines for prosecutions, a result of a precedent-setting 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision.

Critics have suggested a separate federal policing unit with expertise in money laundering is needed.

Eby said he believes any federal government changes will take time, which is why the province is proceeding wherever it can.

Federal Crown prosecutors handle most money-laundering cases.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada has declined interviews and has not answered Postmedia questions about challenges in money-laundering investigations.

The federal prosecution service has 101 employees in B.C., according to its latest annual report from 2017-18, down from 114 in 2009-10. The prosecution service would not say how many were lawyers in 2017-18, although in previous years it has ranged from 65-70. “As with any organization, there are many factors that can contribute to fluctuations in staff levels,” spokesperson Nathalie Houle said in a brief written statement.

A federal parliamentary committee last year reviewed Canada’s anti-money laundering regime and made more than 30 recommendations to improve the system. The recommendations include changes in criminal and privacy laws to assist money-laundering investigations and to add “any necessary” resources for law enforcement and prosecutors to pursue money-laundering and terrorism-financing activities.

In a written statement, a federal Finance Department spokesperson, Pierre-Olivier Herbert, said the recommendations are being carefully reviewed. “A comprehensive government response will be given in the coming weeks,” said Herbert.

He added that minister Bill Blair’s office, which has responsibility for border security and organized crime reduction, is enhancing the RCMP’s investigative and intelligence capabilities in Canada and abroad.

But federal NDP finance critic Peter Julian, who was vice-chair of the committee that reviewed Canada’s anti-money laundering regime, said he has no sense the Liberal government will take the necessary actions to curtail money-laundering, including helping dramatically underfunded institution such as the RCMP. “The report seems to have landed on somebody’s desk and been filed away,” said Julian, MP for New Westminster-Burnaby.

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

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kbolan@postmedia.com

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I have been working with my colleague Gord Hoekstra on a few stories documenting the lack of prosecutions of money laundering cases in B.C.

Here is our Saturday story:

On the afternoon of June 26, 2015, suspected drug traffickers Michael Reg Whieldon and David Bjorn Johnson arrived in Whieldon’s pickup truck at a supposed cosmetics manufacturer in southeast Vancouver.

Whieldon got out of his 2010 Dodge Ram pickup and carried a black-and-blue bag to the business on East Kent Avenue South, in a commercial building near the north arm of the Fraser River. According to police surveillance, about 10 minutes later, Whieldon returned to the truck empty-handed and the pair drove away.

That same day, according to a police report, the owner of the supposed cosmetics manufacturer, Maxim Poon Wong, also known as Nelson Wong, delivered more than $280,000 to a suspected underground bank in Richmond, called Silver International.

A months-long Vancouver Police Department investigation in 2015 concluded that the supposed cosmetics manufacturer, called Ritzy Products, was being used as a branch for Silver International, which is alleged to have washed hundreds of millions of drug money through wealthy Asian gamblers, who picked up bags of cash in Vancouver and deposited money in underground Chinese banks.

Wong delivered nearly $3.9 million to Silver International during a 4½-month period in 2015, according to a police analysis of seized ledgers filed in court.

In 2015, the Vancouver police investigation, called Project Trunkline, and a separate RCMP investigation into Silver International called E-Pirate, led to the arrest of at least 17 people, including Whieldon, Johnson and Wong. The investigations also led to the seizure of more than $3 million in cash, mostly $20-bill bundles wrapped with rubber bands; vehicles, including a Corvette Stingray; jewelry and other valuables; and drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and precursors that are used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

None of the lengthy police surveillance work, the arrests or the seizures has resulted in alleged drug traffickers or money launderers standing trial on criminal charges.

Another Vancouver police investigation, Project Tar, that similarly to Project Trunkline overlapped with E-Pirate, “and may have been a bigger case” say police, also did not result in charges.

The laundering of the large amounts of cash generated by drug trafficking is not limited to one organized crime group, and includes Asian gangs, as already reported, but also those with connections to groups such as the Hells Angels, and Mexican and South American cartels.

The findings from a Postmedia investigation — gleaned from hundreds of pages of B.C. Supreme Court civil documents, provincial criminal court transcripts, criminal court record searches and responses from police and Crown prosecutors — comes as increasing attention is put on money laundering in British Columbia and concern rises over the apparent inability to prosecute alleged perpetrators.

Christian Leuprecht, a Royal Military College of Canada professor, identified Canada’s small number of money laundering investigations and prosecutions as a problem to a federal parliamentary committee, saying it is indicative of a lack of real and sustained support by both the political and law enforcement leadership in Canada.

“We are just not getting a handle on financial crime and illicit financial flows in this country,” Leuprecht told Postmedia. “The question is how come nobody ever goes to jail for it and should we do better? Can we do better?”

The issue has the attention of B.C. Attorney General David Eby, who, when he responded to criminal charges being stayed in the Silver International case, said the inability to prosecute money-laundering is a crisis and there is an urgent need to fix it.

That case — where as much as $220 million a year is alleged to have been laundered — is believed by the attorney general’s office to be the largest money-laundering case in B.C.

Unlike in some provinces, police cannot lay criminal charges in B.C. without approval. That is in the hands of either federal or B.C. prosecutors, depending on the case, who base their decision on evidence provided by police.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada declined an interview on the failed E-Pirate prosecution of alleged-money launderer Silver International, but in a written response said the E-Pirate file was closed and “no other individuals or companies were charged.”

The federal prosecution service did not respond to questions about why other charges did not come forward from the E-Pirate investigation. The service also did not respond to questions from on whether there are challenges in these types of investigations and prosecutions such as in gathering evidence, or whether there were other reasons for not pursuing criminal charges.

“There are challenges in most prosecutions. It is impossible to generalize the challenges by prosecution type,” spokeswoman Nathalie Houle said in a brief written response.

Federal RCMP also declined an interview on the E-Pirate investigation and the challenges surrounding money-laundering investigations.

In a written response, RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Marie Damian did say that money-laundering and financial crime cases undertaken by the RCMP’s federal policing units are increasingly complex, involving multiple domestic and foreign agencies that gather information and evidence from a variety of sources.

“We appreciate how difficult it is not being given the full picture; however, for privacy and operational reasons, there are times it would be inappropriate for the RCMP to release information relating to criminal investigations,” said Damian.

Vancouver police and Alberta police forces did not have a clear explanation of why no criminal charges resulted from the Project Trunkline investigation.

Vancouver police said they were assisting an investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team, an multi-force unit created to combat organized and serious crime. But Alberta police said that Trunkline was a Vancouver police investigation.

Mike Tucker, a spokesman for the Alberta team, said the investigation took place mostly in B.C. and all intelligence they gathered was forwarded to Vancouver police.

Vancouver police Supt. Mike Porteous, in command of investigative services, said it was an Alberta decision on who to prosecute — and the B.C. figures were not prosecuted. “I don’t even know why they decided that,” he said.

• • •

A Vancouver couple accused of money laundering at Silver International, Jian Jun Zhu and Caixuan Qin, were set for several weeks of preliminary hearings in 2019 in Richmond provincial court, but the federal prosecutors stayed the criminal charges unexpectedly and without explanation in November last year.

Court transcripts show there were concerns early by judges hearing preliminary matters about a delay in getting to trial. Twice there was inadvertent disclosure of materials not meant to be seen by the defence.

Others arrested in the three major investigations — E-Pirate, Trunkline and Tar — were not even charged.

In August 2015, two suspected money couriers were arrested near Merritt, as part of the RCMP’s E-Pirate investigation, with nearly $1 million dollars in the trunk of their car, but did not face criminal charges.

In October 2015, another alleged customer of Silver International, Stephen Hai Peng Chen, also known as Hoy Pang Chan, accused of depositing $5.31 million in the underground bank Silver International and withdrawing $2.27 million during a 4½ month period, was arrested but also has not faced criminal charges.

Whieldon, arrested as part of the Trunkline investigation, was considered a high-level drug importer, specifically from Mexico, according to court documents.

Police searched his 31^st-floor Coal Harbour apartment, seizing more than $16,000 in cash, including U.S. dollars, Mexican pesos and Iraqi dinars, according to court documents. Also seized were 11 cellphones, three money counters and a handgun. In an earlier arrest of Whieldon during the investigation, $40,000 was seized from a backpack that tested positive for cocaine residue, according to court documents.

According to sources, the Trunkline investigation started after police in Alberta documented the movement of drugs between B.C. and Alberta allegedly by people connected to La Familia, a Mexican cartel with close ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

According to court documents, one of those that Whieldon was allegedly doing business with, John-Paul Tate Teti, met with full-patch Hells Angel member Chad Wilson on the side of a road in Langley in November 2015 just before Teti was arrested. (Wilson was murdered in November of last year).

A police search of Teti’s car found about one kilogram of marijuana in a white boutique bag and a white box given to him by Wilson just before the arrest, according to police surveillance from Project Trunkline filed in court.

Whieldon was considered close to Hells Angel Bob Green, an influential member of the biker gang who died in a Langley shooting in October 2016, say sources.

Wong, the owner of the supposed cosmetic manufacturer Ritzy Products and suspected as acting as a branch of alleged money launderer Silver International, was arrested on Oak Street in September 2015. Police found more than $225,000 in cash, most of it in $20 bills in a brown box in his pickup, according to court documents. There was also a Post-it note marked “Mike Whieldon” in Wong’s pants pocket.

Wong has been recorded in RCMP databases as being linked to the Yellow Triangle Boys gang and a triad associate.

According to court records, some of those arrested, including Qin, Zhu, Whieldon, Johnson and Wong, who now face forfeiture of money and assets in civil cases launched by the B.C. government, deny they were involved in drug trafficking or money laundering and say that the search and seizures were improper and violated their constitutional rights. Others, such as Chan, have not responded to the civil forfeiture suits, which contain allegations not proven in court.

The threshold for proving a civil claim is lower than for a criminal conviction, a balance of probabilities instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to Porteous, the Vancouver police superintendent, the technical knowledge of the police in conducting these investigations has progressed and is very sophisticated.

Porteous argued that getting charges in complex cases such as money laundering is not a policing issue but a prosecution issue.

As a result of precedent-setting decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada — on full disclosure of evidence and new deadlines for prosecutions — there is additional pressure on the entire criminal justice system in bringing these cases to court, said Porteous.

The volume of material that has to be disclosed has become so huge in major investigations involving dozens of officers that even after a suspect is arrested, said Porteous, “we would still have to maintain up to 20 people for another year just to service the case for secondary disclosure.”

Added Porteous: “Cases now have to be airtight, perfect cases. … There is no accident you keep seeing the big cases not going forward.”

Porteus said it’s these problems that bogged down the Tar investigation and resulted in it not getting to the charge approval stage.

A retired senior RCMP officer, who spoke to Postmedia on condition of anonymity, noted that money laundering is a problem countries all over the world are struggling to tackle.

However, the former officer acknowledged that police resources are a factor, troublesome when money-laundering cases are so complex.

According to the retired officer, the RCMP’s federal serious and organized crime unit is falling apart with a 37 to 40 per cent understaffing, which dates to 2011 when, under federal cuts, the RCMP re-organized federal policing units to be accountable to Ottawa instead of provincial RCMP leaders. “All the horsepower has left federal policing,” said the former cop.

Leuprecht, the Royal Military College professor, said given that money-laundering investigations are complex and require special skills and co-ordination with Crown counsels, Canada must start by revamping federal policing.

Leuprecht, and an expert in policing, security and defence issues, suggests that two separate dedicated federal police forces are needed if financial and cyber crime are to be properly investigated and successfully prosecuted.

• • •

The Financial Action Task Force, an international organization that sets anti-money laundering standards, has highlighted Canada’s lack of successful prosecution of money laundering.

A 2016 task force evaluation report of Canada found that law enforcement results “are not commensurate with money-laundering risks.” The report noted there were a high percentage of charges being withdrawn or stayed.

“The fact that Canada only led 35 prosecutions and obtained 12 convictions in single-led (money laundering) cases between 2010 and 2014 is a concern,” stated the report by money-laundering experts from the International Monetary Fund and France, Italy, Ireland, Brazil and Hong Kong.

A review by Postmedia of money-laundering criminal cases prosecuted in B.C. provincial and B.C. Supreme Court dating back 10 years shows the most significant and recent case failed to get a conviction. A provincial court judge ruled in 2014 that in the case of allegations of laundering $24 million through a currency exchange, the evidence had not established the money was from the proceeds of crime, specifically drug trafficking.

The B.C. Prosecution Service said since 2002, 50 money laundering charge reports were forwarded to Crown counsel, resulting in 34 people being charged with at least one count of money laundering and 10 people being found guilty. The federal prosecution service said it did not keep such statistics.

Donald Sorochan, a Vancouver lawyer who helped set up a 2016 conference on money laundering in Vancouver, says an element of complication is added by the fact that a charge of money laundering must prove the underlying crime.

However, Sorochan, who has both defended and prosecuted criminal cases, said he believes there is a tendency for investigations to produce a huge amount of paper and then the prosecutor “opines” on whether it meets the test to go to trial.

“I think that’s crazy,” said Sorochan, who has expertise on managing complex cases. “I think you can easily discern potential charges and provide guidance so that the police agencies don’t have to write investigative reports that are a book — but rather can focus in on specific charges that are apparent relatively early and what can be done to prove those charges.”

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

twitter.com/gordon_hoekstra

kbolan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kbolan

I have covered many of these U.S. prosecutions of B.C. residents over the years. Interestingly, many of them include convictions on money laundering charges – something that isn’t happening in B.C.

This is part two in the series I worked on with my colleague Gordon Hoekstra:

Over the past decade, more than a dozen B.C. residents have been charged and convicted in the United States of money laundering.

Canadians have faced more justice south of the border for cleaning illicit profits than they have at home, including Ariel Savein, who was moving cash for a Mexican cartel, and Omid Mashinchi, who pleaded guilty last year in Boston to laundering B.C. drug money,

Police experts say that sometimes it’s more effective to turn over evidence they have collected in Canada to their U.S. counterparts, who have a better chance of conviction.

In fact, a Postmedia investigation has revealed that successful money laundering prosecutions in B.C. are rare.

But some lawyers who specialize in extradition believe Canadians accused of committing cross-border crimes like money laundering or drug trafficking should be held accountable in this country.

At least two B.C. men are still in Canada despite being charged years ago with laundering cash in Washington state. Trevor Jones, twin brother of full-patch Hells Angel Randy Jones, was charged in 2011 with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, as well as money laundering. Neither Canadian nor American authorities could say this week whether an extradition request has been made.

And gang associate Glenn Sheck is alleged to have laundered millions in the U.S. and Canada between 2007 and 2012. He was ordered committed for extradition in November 2017. Sheck has filed an appeal, which is set to be heard on April 4.

Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said B.C. investigators inevitably work with their international counterparts when probing organized criminals involved in cross-border crime.And he said the Americans have a wider array of laws related to money laundering and other major crimes, allowing for more success in complex prosecutions.

“It is more difficult to prosecute international drug trafficking and laundering in Canada than it is in the United States or Australia or in these other places where these tentacles reach,” Porteous said. “We routinely share investigative information with other agencies, including international agencies.”

Vancouver police aided the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in its investigation of Savein, who ended up being extradited to California where he pleaded guilty in 2015. He was one of several Canadian money couriers used by the Sinaloa and La Familia cartels to collect millions owed to the gangs by B.C. drug traffickers.

Savein was caught after dropping off $811,850 stuffed in a duffel bag in the parking lot of what was then a Rona store near Grandview Highway. Two Mexican men living in Vancouver delivered more than $6 million in B.C. drug cash to their cartel in the same case.

Metro Vancouver lawyer Gary Botting has represented clients who’ve been extradited to the U.S. to face money laundering and other charges. He believes that if even a part of the alleged offence has been committed in Canada, B.C. residents should be prosecuted on this side of the border.

He said federal Justice Department officials are supposed to review requests for extradition to see if the case in question should be prosecuted in Canada.

But Botting said “never have I heard of a (Canadian) prosecutor taking over the case.”

“Canada has shirked its duty, frankly, in terms of not prosecuting up here,” Botting said.

He said he always makes the argument in extradition hearings that B.C. residents should be prosecuted in a Canadian jurisdiction if the crime occurred at least in part in Canada.

The Financial Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre or Fintrac, Canada’s financial intelligence-gathering agency, conducted a review of money-laundering court prosecutions between 2000 and 2014.

The review, obtained under Canada’s freedom of information laws, found that proceeds of crime were almost entirely generated by drug-related offences and fraud. In fact, most of the B.C. residents convicted in the U.S. of money laundering – like United Nations gang founder Clay Roueche – were involved in drug trafficking.

Roueche pleaded guilty almost a decade ago to heading a massive international drug operation and to laundering the ring’s dirty money. U.S. agents seized over $2 million U.S. during their investigation into Roueche and his associates, which paralleled a Canadian probe by B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.

Canadians have used a variety of methods for moving drug cash across the border, according to a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. court files — including Bitcoin purchases, wire transfers and cash secreted in hidden compartments in vehicles.

Mashinchi, a Wolf Pack associate who was sentenced in November to two years in prison, transferred hundreds of thousands in U.S. funds from his Vancouver bank to a bank in Boston, knowing the money was “derived from drug trafficking,” U.S. documents said.

Richmond businessman Vincent Ramos, who is to be sentenced in San Diego next month, laundered $80 million he got from criminal organizations using bitcoin and shell companies.

He pleaded guilty in October of facilitating the transnational importation and distribution of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine around the world through the sale of encrypted devices.

John Mohammadi pleaded guilty in 2010 to bulk cash smuggling after Washington border patrol agents found $350,000 U.S. stuffed into vacuum-sealed bags in a secret compartment in his cases.

But it was Canadian border guards who first found the compartment, months earlier, when Mohammadi was returning to B.C. Inside the compartment was a key fob and a Bank of America debit card in the name of a North Vancouver drug trafficker. They didn’t tell Mohammadi they had found it, but passed the information to their U.S. counterparts.

Porteous, the Vancouver police superintendent, said ultimately police want to get at criminal networks even “if for whatever reason a case is not prosecutable in Canada.” That means sharing intelligence with police and related agencies in the U.S. and internationally.

“I am in the public safety business. Money laundering is a threat to the public. Drug trafficking is a threat to the public. Weapons trafficking is a threat to the public. And all of the derivative violence that is a result of those activities is a threat to the public. So anything we can do to mitigate that threat, we do,” he said.

kbolan@postmedia.com

ghoekstra@postmedia.com

Mission resident Tami Bullock testified in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday about hearing several bangs on the street outside her home more than a decade ago.

Bullock told jurors at the trial of alleged drug trafficker Jamie Bacon that she was concerned enough about the “seven or eight” bangs that she called 911 that night.

Bacon is charged with counselling someone to commit a murder over several months in late 2008.

Crown prosecutor Joe Bellows said in his opening submissions Feb. 4 that Bacon wanted his associate Dennis Karbovanec dead because Karbovanec was using drugs and not focusing on their illicit business.

And Bellows said Bacon recruited another associate, who can be identified only as CD because of a publication ban, to kill Karbovanec on New Year’s Eve 2008.

Bullock testified before Justice Catherine Wedge that she stayed home with her husband on Dec. 31, 2008 and was watching TV when she heard the bangs.

She said there was a grouping of four or five bangs that got her attention, followed by another two or three after “maybe a couple of minutes.”

“I got up and looked out my kitchen window,” she said, adding that she saw two red tail lights from a car heading west on the street.

Bullock said she lived at the end of Bench Avenue, where the shooting is alleged to have taken place, from about 2006 to 2011.

According to an admission read in court Wednesday, Bullock called police about 10:20 p.m. that night.

Jamie Bacon in an undated photo.

She testified that she contacted police again in mid-January 2009 after her neighbour came to her door and handed her some bullets and shell casings.

The Crown has said that the neighbour was out walking with her young child, when the toddler found some metal cylinders on a trail off Bench Avenue in January 2009. The objects were both spent shell casings and live rounds, Bellows said on the opening day of the trial.

Bullock said her neighbour knocked on her door and said “I have something for you.”

“So I opened my hands and she dropped some casings and some bullets into my hands,” Bullock said.

She testified that she couldn’t remember the exact number of items the neighbour handed to her because so much time has passed.

“I took them into my house and called the police. I put them on my counter and waited for the police to pick them up,” she said.

Bullock was asked in cross-examination to point out her house on an aerial map of Mission and in photos taken of the scene several years later.

Bellows said in his opening that witnesses would testify about several key areas in Mission linked to the shooting — the cul-de-sac on Bench Avenue, another dead-end street called Swift Avenue and Mission Rotary Sports Park where Karbovanec, CD and others allegedly met that night under the pretence of doing a drug-house robbery together.

CD is expected to testify later in the trial, as is another former Bacon associate who can be identified only as AB because of the publication ban.

Both will allege Bacon directed them to kill Karbovanec and helped lure him out to a meeting that night.

Jurors have already been shown surveillance footage of Karbovanec arriving at Mission Memorial Hospital with two bullet wounds. He was not seriously injured.

The trial at the Vancouver Law Courts is expected to last at least 10 weeks.

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Related

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I was back at the Jamie Bacon trial today for the testimony of a woman who lived near the scene of the shooting back in 2008. Next week is when one of the former associates is expected to begin testifying.

Here’s my story:

More than a year after a report by a B.C. government task force on illegal firearms, several key recommendations have not yet been implemented.

Postmedia has learned that forensic testing of some guns used in suspected crimes is not getting done because of a lack of capacity in RCMP forensic labs.

And border guards still don’t have access to a B.C. police database that would give them intelligence on organized criminals and gangsters who might be attempting to cross into Canada with firearms or drugs.

But retired RCMP Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout, who headed the Illegal Firearms Task Force, said a lot of progress has been made implementing other recommendations from the November 2017 report on gun violence in the province.

B.C.’s anti-gang agency — the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit — is “building what we call that firearms intelligence hub,” he said.

And more anti-gang educational programs have been developed and funded in 13 high-risk communities around B.C.

But Rideout confirmed that some key measures from the November 2017 report haven’t yet been implemented or have faced obstacles.

One of the major concerns is the inability to forensically analyze some of the illegal firearms seized by police in B.C.

His report had recommended the establishment of a B.C. firearms tracing hub and increasing capacity in RCMP labs — neither of which has happened.

In fact, Rideout said, the RCMP lab capacity “has diminished over the last number of years.”

“There are simply incredibly long delays in getting a firearm both a) validated as a firearm so that the Crown can prosecute cases of people who are in possession of them … and then b) raising ground-down serial numbers and doing ballistic testing and matching casings at scenes.”

Photo credit: Combined Forces Special Enforcement 2013: Firearms seized by anti-gang police.

He said criminal cases are sometimes compromised by the delays.

Rideout said the B.C. government “believes that tracing recovered firearms is critical to any kind of successful mitigation strategy, and we are not doing that right now.”

“The value of firearms tracing and analytics in support of a firearms strategy is that it has got to happen quick,” Rideout said. “You have got to get that information and collate it and do the analysis of it quickly for it to have any value because criminal patterns, criminal alliances and criminal allegiances are like the wind — moving constantly.”

Firearms linked to other crimes may go to out-of-province labs “on a priority basis based on their capacity to take them,” Rideout said.

But in the case of some seized guns, the forensic testing “just doesn’t get done at all.”

“At the same time we are seeing an upswing in the firearms, we are seeing decreased capacity to do analysis,” Rideout said.

RCMP on the scene of a shooting at the 9500-block of Prince Charles Boulevard, in Surrey, Jan. 10, 2019.

He said the lower RCMP lab capacity comes from “the legacy of deficit reduction … that affected the RCMP at a national level. And had a trickle down effect in British Columbia.”

RCMP Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said in an emailed statement that the Mounties operate three national forensic labs in Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa, where staff “work collaboratively with investigators and clients to determine a diary date according to the urgency or priority of the case.”

She did not address the claim that some illegal firearms are not getting analyzed at all or that delays are impacting prosecutions.

Statistics provided by the B.C. Prosecution Service indicate that in 2017, police completed 803 reports to Crown counsel recommending various firearms charges be laid. Prosecutors approved 735 of those charges. In 2018, police brought forward 843 firearms charges, but only 728 were approved by the prosecution services.

Rideout said that in some instances, a suspected drug trafficker caught with an illegal firearm might only face drug charges because the wait to get the firearm analyzed could delay the prosecution beyond time limits established by the Supreme Court of Canada.

But he said, “the issue is not just about charges, the issue is about the ability to get the global picture” about where criminals are sourcing their firearms.

The B.C. government has still not received its share of $327 million promised by the federal government in November 2017 to tackle gangs and gun violence. Some of the cash could be committed to aiding in the gun testing, sources say.

CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said the anti-gang agency is taking the lead in developing a provincial firearms strategy as recommended in the task force report.

She said the B.C. government has provided money for what CFSEU calls “Provincial Tactical Enforcement Priority-related investigations around the province.”

“The province has also provided funding to CFSEU for firearms-related strategies,” she said.

Gang violence has continued to rage across the Lower Mainland, with two people completely uninvolved becoming unintentional targets of public gunplay last year.

Nurse and hockey coach Paul Bennett was shot to death in his driveway on June 23, 2018. No one has been charged in the murder.

Homicide victim Paul Bennett.

Postmedia has learned that gangster Kyle Gianis, who survived a shooting a year earlier, lived near Bennett’s home and was the suspected target that day. Gianis has been aligned with the United Nations-Dhak-Duhre side in the ongoing gang conflict.

Fifteen-year-old Alfred Wong died after the car he was riding in caught a stray bullet in Vancouver on Jan. 13, 2018.

The gunplay along East Broadway was between warring gangsters linked to the Wolf Pack. Kevin Whiteside, one of the gunmen, was also killed that day. Another target, Matthew Navas-Rivas, was shot to death months later in East Vancouver. Again no one has been charged in the murders.

Alfred Wong, 15, was killed when he was struck by a stray bullet while riding in a car with his family after a night out Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018.

Vancouver Police Sgt. Jason Robillard said Vancouver had 19 shots fired incidents in the city in 2018, with five people getting killed in shootings and eight others injured.

Surrey RCMP Cpl. Elenore Sturko said the number of shots fired reports in Surrey last year were at a four-year low with just 38 incidents called in. That was down from a high of 88 in 2015.

She also noted that Surrey launched an “Inadmissible Patron Program” last fall “as a result of the recommendations of the 2017 firearms task force report and the Mayor’s gang task force report.”

The program mirrors Vancouver’s successful Barwatch program aimed at keeping gangsters and their guns out of night spots.

All of Abbotsford’s five murders in 2018 were gang-related and involved firearms, Abbotsford Police Dept. Sgt. Judy Bird said this week.

While the murder rate in the Fraser Valley city was down from the year before, she said the APD “remains concerned with the gang violence that our province is facing.”

“Our number one priority is the safety of our community and gun violence is concerning,” Bird said.

“I know this is one of our main priorities and it is multi-faceted — everything from intervention to community engagement to enforcement — everything we can think of we are trying to do.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

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I decided to follow up on the government’s Nov. 2017 report on illegal firearms in B.C. to see what has happened in terms of the implementation of recommendations. Over the last few days of research, I was surprised to learn some key recommendations haven’t been implemented. And what’s worse, despite continuing gang and gun violence, the RCMP has cut forensic lab services back, meaning some guns seized by police are not even getting tested or processed. That means fewer

I know everyone is focused on money laundering in the province right now, but we have had several innocent people shot to death in the last few years, so you think gun violence would also be a priority for the public, the police and all levels of government. I note that no one has bee charged yet in the murder last year of Surrey nurse Paul Bennett – mistaken, police belief for gangster Kyle Gianis – nor for the Vancouver murder of teenager Alfred Wong who was caught in the crossfire of a Wolf Pack internal dispute.

Here’s my story:

More than a year after a report by a B.C. government task force on illegal firearms, several key recommendations have not yet been implemented.

Postmedia has learned that forensic testing of some guns used in suspected crimes is not getting done because of a lack of capacity in RCMP forensic labs.

And border guards still don’t have access to a B.C. police database that would give them intelligence on organized criminals and gangsters who might be attempting to cross into Canada with firearms or drugs.

But retired RCMP Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout, who headed the Illegal Firearms Task Force, said a lot of progress has been made implementing other recommendations from the November 2017 report on gun violence in the province.

B.C.’s anti-gang agency — the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit — is “building what we call that firearms intelligence hub,” he said.

And more anti-gang educational programs have been developed and funded in 13 high-risk communities around B.C.

But Rideout confirmed that some key measures from the November 2017 report haven’t yet been implemented or have faced obstacles.

One of the major concerns is the inability to forensically analyze some of the illegal firearms seized by police in B.C.

His report had recommended the establishment of a B.C. firearms tracing hub and increasing capacity in RCMP labs — neither of which has happened.

In fact, Rideout said, the RCMP lab capacity “has diminished over the last number of years.”

“There are simply incredibly long delays in getting a firearm both a) validated as a firearm so that the Crown can prosecute cases of people who are in possession of them … and then b) raising ground-down serial numbers and doing ballistic testing and matching casings at scenes.”

He said criminal cases are sometimes compromised by the delays.

Rideout said the B.C. government “believes that tracing recovered firearms is critical to any kind of successful mitigation strategy, and we are not doing that right now.”

“The value of firearms tracing and analytics in support of a firearms strategy is that it has got to happen quick,” Rideout said. “You have got to get that information and collate it and do the analysis of it quickly for it to have any value because criminal patterns, criminal alliances and criminal allegiances are like the wind — moving constantly.”

Firearms linked to other crimes may go to out-of-province labs “on a priority basis based on their capacity to take them,” Rideout said.

But in the case of some seized guns, the forensic testing “just doesn’t get done at all.”

“At the same time we are seeing an upswing in the firearms, we are seeing decreased capacity to do analysis,” Rideout said.

He said the lower RCMP lab capacity comes from “the legacy of deficit reduction … that affected the RCMP at a national level. And had a trickle down effect in British Columbia.”

RCMP Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said in an emailed statement that the Mounties operate three national forensic labs in Vancouver, Edmonton and Ottawa, where staff “work collaboratively with investigators and clients to determine a diary date according to the urgency or priority of the case.”

She did not address the claim that some illegal firearms are not getting analyzed at all or that delays are impacting prosecutions.

Statistics provided by the B.C. Prosecution Service indicate that in 2017, police completed 803 reports to Crown counsel recommending various firearms charges be laid. Prosecutors approved 735 of those charges. In 2018, police brought forward 843 firearms charges, but only 728 were approved by the prosecution services.

Rideout said that in some instances, a suspected drug trafficker caught with an illegal firearm might only face drug charges because the wait to get the firearm analyzed could delay the prosecution beyond time limits established by the Supreme Court of Canada.

But he said, “the issue is not just about charges, the issue is about the ability to get the global picture” about where criminals are sourcing their firearms.

The B.C. government has still not received its share of $327 million promised by the federal government in November 2017 to tackle gangs and gun violence. Some of the cash could be committed to aiding in the gun testing, sources say.

CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said the anti-gang agency is taking the lead in developing a provincial firearms strategy as recommended in the task force report.

She said the B.C. government has provided money for what CFSEU calls “Provincial Tactical Enforcement Priority-related investigations around the province.”

“The province has also provided funding to CFSEU for firearms-related strategies,” she said.

Gang violence has continued to rage across the Lower Mainland, with two people completely uninvolved becoming unintentional targets of public gunplay last year.

Nurse and hockey coach Paul Bennett was shot to death in his driveway on June 23, 2018. No one has been charged in the murder.

Postmedia has learned that gangster Kyle Gianis, who survived a shooting a year earlier, lived near Bennett’s home and was the suspected target that day. Gianis has been aligned with the United Nations-Dhak-Duhre side in the ongoing gang conflict.

Fifteen-year-old Alfred Wong died after the car he was riding in caught a stray bullet in Vancouver on Jan. 13, 2018.

The gunplay along East Broadway was between warring gangsters linked to the Wolf Pack. Kevin Whiteside, one of the gunmen, was also killed that day. Another target, Matthew Navas-Rivas, was shot to death months later in East Vancouver. Again no one has been charged in the murders,

Vancouver Police Sgt. Jason Robillard said Vancouver had 19 shots fired incidents in the city in 2018, with five people getting killed in shootings and eight others injured.

Alfred Wong, 15, was killed when he was struck by a stray bullet while riding in a car with his family after a night out Saturday, Jan. 13. [PNG Merlin Archive]

Surrey RCMP Cpl. Elenore Sturko said the number of shots fired reports in Surrey last year were at a four-year low with just 38 incidents called in. That was down from a high of 88 in 2015.She also noted that Surrey launched an “Inadmissible Patron Program” last fall “as a result of the recommendations of the 2017 firearms task force report and the Mayor’s gang task force report.”

The program mirrors Vancouver’s successful Barwatch program aimed at keeping gangsters and their guns out of night spots.

All of Abbotsford’s five murders in 2018 were gang-related and involved firearms, Abbotsford Police Dept. Sgt. Judy Bird said this week.

While the murder rate in the Fraser Valley city was down from the year before, she said the APD “remains concerned with the gang violence that our province is facing.”

“Our number one priority is the safety of our community and gun violence is concerning,” Bird said.

“I know this is one of our main priorities and it is multi-faceted — everything from intervention to community engagement to enforcement — everything we can think of we are trying to do.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

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A Mission mom testified in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday about being out on a walk with her toddler a decade ago when the little girl picked up a shiny object she saw on the road.

“My first concern was my daughter putting something she shouldn’t into her mouth,” Lexi Richards told jurors and Justice Catherine Wedge at the trial of Jamie Bacon.

Richards described the object her 13-month old daughter picked up in the first or second week of January 2009 as a “cylinder” with writing on the bottom.

She testified that she thought the words were “semi-automatic” and believed it was some kind of ammunition.

Richards is one of several people who lived on Bench Avenue in Mission on Dec. 31, 2008 when drug trafficker Dennis Karbovanec was injured in a shooting that allegedly took place on the dead-end street.

Karbovanec was struck twice in the back and the head but was not seriously injured. He made his way to Mission Memorial Hospital later that night where he was treated and released.

Jamie Bacon in an undated photo.

Bacon is charged with one count of counseling another man to kill Karbovanec, his one-time associate in the drug trade.

Crown prosecutor Joe Bellows said in his opening submissions that several Bacon associates were present when Karbovanec was shot at the end of the Bench Avenue cul de sac.

Two of them, who can only be identified as AB and CD due to publication bans, are expected to testify that Bacon ordered the hit because he was upset that Karbovanec was using Oxycontin and not focusing his attention on their joint drug business.

Richards admitted that some of her memories about what she found that day are vague given how much time has passed.

Under cross-examination she was shown photographs depicting four spent shell casings and four live rounds.

She agreed that the items in the photos looked like what she found that day though the word on the bottom said “auto” and not “semi-automatic” as she had testified.

“Being shown this exhibit, I recognize the stamped lettering written in a semi-circle. I can see that the wording is different and at this point I question whether I changed the word auto and some how added the word semi,” she explained.

Richards said she gave the items to her neighbour Tami Bullock, who testified last week that she had called police on New Year’s Eve after hearing what she believed were gunshots on the street outside.

Bullock’s husband Tony took the stand Tuesday afternoon. He said he recalled Richards knocking on his door in January 2009 and handing his wife some brass objects.

“They looked like bullet casings,” he testified.

Later the same day, he went out to the street to look around and found more spent casings and live rounds. And he saw what appeared to be a walkie-talkie-type device sitting on top of a fire hydrant, he told jurors.

All of the items found by the neighbour and himself were turned over to police, Bullock testified.

The trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, is being held at the Vancouver Law Courts.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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A bullet would be un discharged so it would still have the bullet tip on the casing

There was at least one that was not fired off. But it was a mixture of bullets.

More people who lived on the street where drug trafficker Dennis Karbovanec was shot on New Year’s in 2008 testified at the trial of Jamie Bacon Thursday.

One of Bacon’s former associates, who got a deal to testify against him, is expected to take the stand later this week.

Here’s my latest story:

The RCMP is further cutting the number of guns used in crimes that will be sent to national forensic labs for analysis, Postmedia has learned.

And that means that in some cases, criminals caught with illegal firearms may not face any charges related to the guns.

Postmedia revealed last week that the RCMP’s ability to test firearms had declined in recent years due to lab cuts, leading to long delays in investigations.

Retired RCMP Asst. Commissioner Wayne Rideout, who heads the B.C. government’s Illegal Firearms Task Force, confirmed last week that the lab cuts are impacting some criminal cases.

A report he released in November 2017 recommended that the provincial government build its own firearms tracing hub, which has not yet been done.

Now, Postmedia has also learned that further limits on forensic testing were imposed just last week.

The new directive at the national RCMP labs means that guns seized by police in the course of an investigation of an unrelated crime — such as a robbery where the gun was not used — won’t be sent to be examined.

Neither will firearms seized by Canada Border Services Agency officers from suspected smugglers, or firearms taken by police during investigations of suicides, attempted suicides or incidents of domestic violence.

And if someone is being investigated for pointing a firearm, that gun will not be sent for forensic examination unless the person has a known association to organized crime or a previous criminal record.

Likewise, if a suspect found with a gun is being investigated for possession of a controlled substance, the gun will not be tested under the new guideline.

If any seized firearm has been discharged during a crime or has an obliterated serial number, it would still be sent to the lab for forensic examination.

But if a loaded firearm is found away from a crime scene by a passerby, it would not be tested, even if it might have been used in a murder somewhere else.

Liberal MLA and former Mountie Mike Morris said that when he was solicitor-general, he was seeking solutions to the lab capacity problem — including the possibility of building a B.C.-owned lab.

“That whole issue is a mess and it all goes back to the deficit-reduction plan of the previous Conservative government and the cutback on federal resources,” Morris said Wednesday.

Cutting the number of seized firearms that are processed is “a step in the wrong direction,” he said.

“Things are falling off the table with the underfunding of the RCMP federally. It’s affecting what we do in this province. We have seen a number of prosecutions that have gone sideways.”

When not enough resources are put into criminal cases, “shortcuts are being taken which compromise the investigation at the end of the day,” Morris said.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Tania Vaughan said in an emailed response from Ottawa that the reduction in lab capacity stems from federal budget cuts in 2014-2015 that led to the National Forensic Laboratory Services going from six facilities down to three — only two of which examine firearms.

“Due to employees choosing not to relocate after the laboratory consolidation within the Firearms and Toolmark Identification (FTI) section, NFLS had to undertake a capacity re-building exercise in FTI over the last several years,” Vaughan said. “Building or re-building capacity is a gradual process.”

She said lab staff work with investigators to determine if a request for examination is “routine” or a “priority.”

In 2017-2018, the average time to complete a routine case was 238 days, she said, while priority cases were completed in an average of 26 days.

The most recent stats available for the first quarter of the 2018-2019 fiscal year show that “the average turnaround time for a routine firearms service request was 158 days,” Vaughan said.

But sources say the numbers are not accurate as some investigators ask for the firearms to be returned before the examination is complete due to the lengthy delays. Those firearms are not included in the statistics.

Vaughan had no specific response about the new directive that reduces the circumstances under which crime guns will be accepted for testing.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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I wrote about this issue last week, then learned that the RCMP has issued a new directive further cutting the number of illegal guns being sent for testing. This is really disturbing given that guns used in violent crimes are often dumped away from the crime scene. Even in the current Jamie Bacon trial, the Crown said the Glock allegedly used in the shooting wasn’t found for nine years. Under the new rules, maybe it wouldn’t have been tested and linked to the crime.

Here’s my story:

When Jamie Bacon drew his finger across his throat after giving a hand signal for his pal Dennis Karbovanec, his former drug trafficking associate says he knew what Bacon wanted done.

The associate, who can only be identified as AB due to a publication ban, testified in B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday that Bacon’s cryptic hand gestures in December 2008 were telling him that Karbovanec had to be killed.

And within weeks, on New Year’s Eve 2008, AB and another associate who can be identified only as CD met Karbovanec at a park in Mission in an attempt to shoot him on Bacon’s orders, AB told jurors and Justice Catherine Wedge.

Bacon is charged with one count of counselling someone to commit murder for his alleged role in the unsuccessful attempt on Karbovanec’s life.

The shooting happened on a dead-end street called Bench Ave. where the group had driven in two cars that night on the pretense of preparing to rob a nearby drug house, AB said.

Once at the location, AB was standing next to Karbovanec showing him drawings of the target house when CD got out of one of the vehicles “and starts firing,” AB testified.

“I am kind of, like, shocked that he is firing because I am standing right next to Dennis when he starts shooting,” he said. “He lets off a few shots, the gun jams, the clip drops out. He quickly sticks another clip in, racks the gun back, which is cocking the gun, so is getting another bullet in the chamber and then starts firing.”

AB said eight to 10 shots were fired in total, but that Karbovanec managed to escape by jumping into some nearby bushes and running through a ravine.

AB said Bacon ordered the 2008 hit because he believed Karbovanec was a “scumbag” who had “done all kinds of terrible things and was bringing a lot of heat — unwanted police attention to all of us.”

AB said he agreed to be part of the murder plot even though it “caught me off guard” when Bacon said he wanted Karbovanec dead.

AB said he made it clear to Bacon that he wouldn’t be the actual shooter, although he agreed to help with the murder. “I am not the type of guy to kill somebody,” he testified.

He said Bacon was also concerned that Karbovanec might “be working with the police or possibly informing the police about some things, and was bringing unwanted negative police attention.”

CD, another drug trafficker who owed Bacon a lot of money at the time, agreed to be the shooter, “because that is the way he could work off his debt. … In the drug business, if you owe someone a lot of money, you have to either pay it back or work it off somehow,” AB said.

AB said Bacon told him to lure Karbovanec out on Dec. 31 by explaining that their crew had to rob another drug dealer.

At first, Karbovanec refused to participate in the robbery and AB had to get a note from Bacon to deliver to Karbovanec, AB testified.

The note, delivered earlier Dec. 31, told Karbovaenc “to grow a set of balls and come out and do this job with me and for him not to have a gun on him. And that if he doesn’t want to, he’s done with us,” AB told jurors.

After reading Bacon’s message, Karbovanec agreed to meet AB, CD and two others that night.

AB said that he and CD and their driver fled after the unsuccessful hit, driving in a stolen Ford Bronco to another dead-end street where they abandoned the vehicle and attempted to light it on fire.

They then fled down a path through a wooded area that they called the Love Forest where AB told CD to throw away the Glock .45 he had used in the shooting.

He said he heard the gun make a splash, so assumed it had landed in a creek.

AB said he was very upset with CD because of the failed hit.

CD also “knew he just f—ed up a big job … because he just failed to kill Dennis. He failed to kill one of our friends that is in our crew,” AB testified.

The trial continues.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says he is “very, very concerned” about funding cuts at RCMP forensic labs that are preventing some illegal firearms seized by police from being analyzed.

Postmedia has revealed over the last week that the two national RCMP labs that do forensic examinations of guns used in crimes don’t have the capacity to handle all the requests they are getting.

And that means, in some cases, criminals caught with illegal firearms may not face any gun charges.

Farnworth told Postmedia on Thursday that the situation is unacceptable and that the RCMP lab capacity must be increased.

“We are very concerned about this because of this whole issue of gang violence we are facing in this province,” Farnworth said. “A big part of dealing with it is getting prosecutions, and if there are gaps because of a lack of capacity, that is a problem. It is a big problem.”

He said he has been in touch with his federal counterparts about the issue and hopes some funding that was promised by Solicitor-General Ralph Goodale in November 2017 could help address the lab problem.

“We have got a proposal to increase capacity and hopefully deal with this,” Farnworth said.

But B.C. might also open its own provincial forensic lab, as Ontario has done, to process and track illegal firearms seized by police, Farnworth said.

“We might have to have our own lab here in B.C.,” he said. “We have our own proposal, but I can’t give you the details of it at this point.”

The B.C. government’s Illegal Firearms Task Force recommended in its 2017 report that the province establish its own firearms tracing hub, as well as getting capacity increased in the RCMP labs — neither of which has yet happened.

Task force head and retired RCMP Asst. Commissioner Wayne Rideout told Postmedia last week that the reduced lab capacity has impacted some criminal prosecutions.

“At the same time we are seeing an upswing in the firearms, we are seeing decreased capacity to do analysis,” Rideout said.

Farnworth said the whole idea of the illegal firearms report was to identify the changes needed “to be able to get better intelligence and know where firearms are coming from.”

“So the idea that we don’t have the capacity to track and to have a lab to test firearms is ridiculous,” he said. “This is a serious issue. It has to be fixed. It may require us (creating) our own lab here in B.C. if the feds aren’t going to fix this at their end.”

The lab crunch stems from 2014-2015 cuts to the RCMP’s budget that resulted in the National Forensic Laboratory Services downsizing from six facilities to three — only two of which process firearms.

One of the remaining firearms labs is in Vancouver on the RCMP’s old site on Heather Street. A new forensics lab is under construction at the RCMP’s new Surrey headquarters, which is expected to open next summer.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Tania Vaughan said in an email from Ottawa that “firearm analysis will be temporarily paused” in B.C. as lab services transition from Vancouver to Surrey.

kbolan@postmedia.com

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