The federal government is not doing enough to keep organized crime out of the medical marijuana business, B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said Thursday.

Farnworth was reacting to two recent Postmedia News stories about full-patch members of the Hells Angels being involved in medical pot in B.C.

This week, Postmedia reported that West Point Hells Angel Lukasz Cimoszko, who died recently of a suspected overdose, had a federal licence to grow medical cannabis despite allegations by the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office that he was involved in organized crime.

And in February, Postmedia revealed that long-time Vancouver Hells Angel Hal Porteous was offering on Instagram to help people obtain medical marijuana growing licences. Porteous has since retired from the biker gang.

“We don’t want to see the involvement of organized crime in either medical cannabis or the recreational cannabis industry. This is clearly evidence that not-thorough-enough background screenings are being done by Health Canada on who is getting these licences,” Farnworth said.  “There is absolutely no place for organizations like the Hells Angels in either recreational cannabis or medicinal cannabis.”

Farnworth said the federal government has promised reforms to the medical cannabis licensing system within five years to help deal with organized crime infiltration and other issues that have been raised.

“I think that is far too long. I think now with the legalization of recreational cannabis, there needs to be significant reform done on the medical cannabis side,” he said.

He said organized crime’s involvement in the production and sale of cannabis “is an area of real concern for us at the provincial and local level.”

“It is frustrating that Health Canada does not seem to realize this, and I don’t know why,” Farnworth said. “There should be thorough background checks because they know that this whole system of medical cannabis is attracting organized crime like moths to a flame.”

Cimoszko was fighting a lawsuit filed by the director of civil forfeiture last year after the biker was stopped by Vancouver police and found to have 240 grams of marijuana, a machete and bundles of cash totaling $12,270 in his leased Corvette.

He argued in his court documents that he had a medical licence to possess the pot and that police violated his Charter rights when officers searched him.

But the government agency alleged he was in possession of more pot than his licence allowed and that he was “participating in the activities of a criminal organization.”

“Mr. Cimoszko did not have sufficient legitimate income to have acquired the money,” the suit said.

It noted that he got his licence in April 2013 under the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations.

At the time, Cimoszko’s business partner in a car import company, fellow West Point Hells Angel Larry Amero, was facing cocaine importation charges in Quebec. The charges were stayed last year due to delays in the case. But Amero has since been charged with conspiracy to kill two gang rivals.  

Hells Angel Lukasz Cimoszko, 36, died April 12, 2018 near Barriere, B.C.

Health Canada media relations officer Rebecca Purdy said she couldn’t comment on how a Hells Angel would qualify for a medical pot growing licence.

“For privacy reasons, Health Canada cannot comment on whether an individual is authorized and registered to produce a limited amount of cannabis for their own medical purposes,” she said in an email.

Earlier this year, Postmedia reported that Porteous, a member of the Vancouver Hells Angels chapter until recently, offered to help people get medical licences.

“If anyone is in serious pain and doesn’t want to take prescription medication and would like a medical marijuana license to grow there (sic) own medication, please DM me. This is legal!!” 

Retired police biker expert Andy Richards provided Postmedia with a copy of Porteous’ social media post.

Richards, now CEO of Spire Secure Logistics, said the revelations about Cimoszko’s growing licence “certainly reflects poorly on Health Canada’s ability to regulate our national medical cannabis system.”

“When one full-patch HA member is able to obtain a personal production licence, and another has the ability to broker ‘pooled’ licences across Canada, one has to wonder how well regulators will be able to monitor and inspect aspects of the legal recreational cannabis system,” he said Thursday.

“The prevention of organized crime infiltration, black market diversion, and keeping cannabis out of the hands of youth have been touted as primary goals of legislation. To be honest, so far we’ve seen little beyond lip service.”

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Three gangsters on trial for the 2011 murder of Red Scorpion leader Jonathan Bacon are expected to plead guilty to lesser charges when their trial resumes on May 1, Crown spokesman Dan McLaughlin confirmed Friday.

A new indictment was sworn this week against Jason McBride, Jujhar Khun-Khun and Michael Jones.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Bretton was notified of the plea deal Friday morning.

All three men had been facing charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the brazen Aug. 14, 2011 shooting outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel.

Bacon was fatally wounded when the Porsche Cayenne he was in was sprayed with bullets in front of shocked onlookers.

Also wounded was the Cayenne’s driver — Hells Angel Larry Amero — and passengers Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black. Independent Soldier James Riach jumped out as the shooting started and escaped injury.

McLaughlin said the new indictment in the case was filed April 19.

McBride is now charged with the second-degree murder of Bacon, and the attempted murder of Amero, Riach, Hadden-Watts and Black.

Jones and Khun-Khun are now only charged with conspiring with McBride, the late Sukh Dhak and others to commit the murders of Amero, Riach and Bacon between June 1 and Aug. 14, 2011.

“The matter has now been adjourned to May 1, 2018. It is anticipated that guilty pleas will be entered at that time to all charges on the new indictment and the sentencing hearing will proceed on the basis of a joint submission,” McLaughlin said. “As the matter remains before the court, the B.C. Prosecution Service will have no further comment at this time.”

The trial of the three gangsters began in Kelowna on May 29, 2017 and continued on and off until October before being adjourned to sort out disclosure issues. 

Jonathan Bacon in June 2008 file photo

Crown prosecutor Dave Ruse promised dramatic evidence in his opening statement. He said that DNA of all three accused was found on hoodies and a ball cap discarded after the murder. 

And he said that former gangsters-turned Crown witnesses would testify that all three accused were part of the team hunting Amero, Bacon and Riach because the Sukh Dhak believed the trio was behind the murder of his brother Gurmit in Burnaby in October 2010.

Ruse said that Khun-Khun, McBride, Jones and a fourth man, Manny Hairan, arrived in Kelowna early on the morning of Aug. 14, 2011 to kill Amero and his friends after they had been spotted partying in the lakeside resort town.

“They went and attended various bars, various clubhouses, including the Throttle Lockers and the Hells Angels, in an effort to locate Mr. Amero’s associates,” Ruse said.

The accused walked along the waterfront behind the Delta Grand Hotel where Amero and his group were staying and “saw a large orange boat named ‘Steroids and Silicone’ tied up. … Mr. McBride recognized that as Larry’s boat, and instructed them to keep their eyes open,” Ruse said.

Later that day, the Dhak associates went back to the hotel and waited.

Amero, Bacon, Riach, Hadden-Watts and Black had checked out and gotten into the Porsche. Bacon was in the front beside Amero. The women were in the back beside Riach.

“A Ford Explorer pulled up to the passenger side of the Porsche. Gunmen opened fire from within and outside the Explorer,” Ruse said.

“The gunmen eventually got into their vehicle and sped off.”

Ruse said the three firearms used in the murder — a Glock and two Norincos — were found months later dumped at a construction site north of Kelowna.

The clothing was found dumped inside a recycling bin at another location. Not only was there DNA matches to the accused, but a drop of Amero’s blood was found on one of the hoodies.

Police recovered 45 shell casings and two live rounds from the crime scene, Ruse said.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

The new indictment contains the following charges:

Count 1/Chef 1:

That on or about the 14^th, day of August, 2011, at or near Kelowna, in the Province of British Columbia, Jason Thomas MCBRIDE did commit the second degree murder of Jonathan Bacon, contrary to Section 235(1) of the Criminal Code. 

Count 2/Chef 2:

That on or about the 14^th, day of August, 2011, at or near Kelowna, in the Province of British Columbia, while using a prohibited firearm, Jason Thomas MCBRIDE did attempt to commit the murder of Larry Amero, James Riach, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black, by discharging that firearm at Larry Amero, James Riach, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black, contrary to Section 239(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

Count 3/Chef 3:

That between the 1^st day of June, 2011 and the 14^th day of August, 2011, both dates inclusive, at or near Vancouver, Coquitlam, Kelowna, and elsewhere in the Province of British Columbia, Michael Kerry Hunter JONES and Jujhar KHUN-KHUN did conspire together, and with Jason McBride, Suhkveer Dhak, and others to commit the murder of Larry Amero, James Riach and Jonanthan Bacon, contrary to Section 465(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

United Nations gang associate Aram Ali will be released into the community while awaiting deportation to his native Iraq despite submissions by the Canada Border Services Agency that he is a danger to the public.

Immigration and Refugee Board member Laura Ko ruled Friday that placing the convicted gunman on strict conditions should protect Canadians while allowing Ali to spend time with his family until he gets the travel documents needed for his deportation.

Ko rejected arguments from CBSA representative Meelan Gene that Ali’s history of criminality and gang association would likely continue if he were to be released.

Gene noted that when Ali shot up the Range Rover of a gang rival outside Surrey’s T-Barz strip club in February 2009, he was on bail on a drug trafficking charge.

If released now, “it is all too likely that Mr. Ali will be tempted by the fast and easy money of criminality once again, which would result in further offences that would endanger members of the public,” Gene said.

She also pointed to comments from B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes who called Ali “a mercenary for hire who was prepared to shoot a person for money and put other people at very serious risk.”

The 33-year-old was sentenced in December 2015 to eight and a half years for the shooting he carried out on behalf of UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli. The Range Rover driver was injured, but the intended target — Independent Soldier Tyler Willock — escaped injury.

Holmes said “it was by sheer luck that (the driver) or one of his passengers were not more seriously injured or killed.”

With credit for pre-trial custody, Ali got a net sentence of three and a half years and was transferred to immigration custody this month after serving two-thirds of the term.

The Immigration and Refugee Board ruled earlier that Ali, who was an infant when he fled Iraq with his family, is not eligible to remain in Canada due to his serious criminality.

Ko noted that Ali abided by bail conditions while living in Calgary from 2011 until he was tried, convicted and sentenced in Vancouver in 2015.

And she said Ali did well while imprisoned, completing high school and taking other pro-social programing.

“I think you would likely comply with conditions given your motivation and your past compliance with conditions,” she told him at the conclusion of a day-long hearing.

She ordered Ali to follow conditions imposed on him earlier by the Parole Board of Canada to steer clear of criminal associates, carry only a single cellphone and provide details of his finances to a probation officer.

She also imposed a 9 p.m. curfew and said he could be released after his mother Ramzieh Mouhammed put up a $5,000 bond.

“The bond being offered by your family offers an additional incentive,” Ko said. “This is giving you the opportunity to spend any time you do have with your family.”

Mouhammed testified at her son’s hearing, crying when she described how hard it will be when he is sent to Iraq.

She said through an interpreter that if her eldest son could be released, even for a short time, “it would be like the whole world is given to me.”

Ali’s lawyer Veen Aldosky argued that it would be unfair to hold Ali in custody while it is unclear how long it will take Iraq to issue the travel documents.

She said that she will be filing an appeal of the earlier Immigration and Refugee Board ruling against her client.

In addition to convictions for aggravated assault and discharging a firearm in the T-Barz shooting, Ali has an earlier conviction for drug trafficking. And he was also implicated by a witness at a gang murder trial last year as having accidentally shot at a UN gang associate in May 2008 while the gang was out hunting the Bacon brothers.

Tilli-Choli, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill the Bacons, was deported to Iraq in January 2017 after completing his sentence.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

The officer, whose identity is shielded by a publication ban, continued his evidence on the second day of the trial between the Hells Angels and the B.C. director of civil forfeiture.

The government agency wants the Nanaimo, Kelowna and East Vancouver clubhouses of the biker gang forfeited on the basis that they would be used to commit crimes in the future.

The Hells Angels are fighting back with a countersuit seeking a declaration that the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Act is unconstitutional.

The trial got off to a slow start after lawyers for the Hells Angels challenged the admissibility of the 2012 recorded conversations, arguing they are hearsay evidence.

The intercepted conversations were part of a case that led to convictions against Giles, Hells Angel Bryan Oldham and several associates in 2016.

Giles died last year just months into a lengthy jail sentence.

The officer, who posed as a South American drug lord during four meetings with Giles, described the biker showing his Hells Angels tattoos and reassuring the cop that his “brothers” in the gang had his back in the deal.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies will hear submissions Wednesday on whether or not to admit the evidence.

Hells Angel lawyer Greg DelBigio questioned the officer about his role in the earlier investigation.

“One of the issues you need to pay attention to is whether or not the target you are dealing with is simply lying to you, right?” DelBigio asked.

The cop responded that he is deliberately not provided with other details of the investigation so he can’t assess the truth of the target’s answers. He simply passed his information about what was said to the officer in charge of the undercover operation, he explained.

“If, for example, you were steering too hard and Mr. Giles lied to you, that is something you can’t comment on one way of the other?” DelBigio asked.

The officer replied: “Again, I was not trying to steer him.”

He said he would try to push a certain “topic of conversation” but did not try to elicit specific answers.

The officer said that Giles also admitted to having previously imported cocaine from South America to Canada, including a 2001 shipment of 2.5 tonnes on a fishing boat called the Western Wind that was seized by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Brent Olthuis, a lawyer representing the B.C. government, also tried Tuesday to get the ruling that convicted Giles admitted as evidence in the case.

But the Hells Angels lawyers said it would be improper to do so.

In the earlier ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Carol Ross cited Giles’ conversations with the purported drug lord, which took place in Panama.

Giles described himself as the “consigliere” of his co-accused, Kevin Van Kalkeren.

“Mr. Giles discussed his history in the Hells Angels and some aspects of the club in relation to the criminal activities of members. He said that any business on the side, like the stuff they were talking about, had to be brought to three people in his room,” Ross noted.

The civil trial continues.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

KELOWNA — Three men who brought gangland terror to downtown Kelowna pleaded guilty Tuesday for their roles in the brazen 2011 execution of Red Scorpion boss Jonathan Bacon.

Prosecutor David Ruse said the retaliatory attack targeting Bacon, Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach was made worse by where and how it happened — in front of the Delta Grand Hotel around 2:30 p.m. on Aug. 14, 2011.

“It is difficult to imagine a more public place to attempt this murder than the entranceway of a large resort hotel in a tourist city in the middle of summer on a sunny Sunday day,” Ruse told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan Betton.

Ruse described how Jason McBride, Michael Jones and Jujhar Khun-Khun hunted their rivals for more than two months, pulling together crews of hitmen on a moment’s notice after getting encrypted messages about the possible whereabouts of their targets.

The driving force behind the murder plot was the late Sukh Dhak. He believed Bacon, Amero and Riach were responsible for the murder of his gangster brother Gurmit, gunned down in front of his family outside of Burnaby’s Metrotown Mall in October 2010.

“Sukh Dhak and other members of the Dhak group, came to believe that rival drug traffickers Larry Amero, James Riach and Jonathan Bacon, collectively known as the Wolf Pack, were responsible for the murder of Gurmit Dhak,” Ruse said. “As a result, members of the Dhak group sought to retaliate against the Wolf Pack and their associates.”

McBride was a close associate of Gurmit Dhak. Jones was McBride’s friend. Khun-Khun was a close ally of Sukh Dhak, Ruse said.

All three had originally been charged in 2013 with first-degree murder. After weeks of negotiations between Crown and their lawyers, a deal was struck for each to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Standing in the prisoner’s box Tuesday, McBride admitted he was guilty of second-degree murder and attempted murder for fatally shooting Bacon and wounding four others when he opened fire on their Porsche Cayenne.

Jones pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for driving McBride and two other killers to the Delta Grand Hotel that day. And Khun-Khun also admitted he conspired from June 1 to Aug. 14, 2011 to kill Bacon, Amero and Riach.

Ruse told Betton there was also a joint prosecutor-defence submission on sentencing. Under the agreement, which Betton must still approve, McBride would receive a life sentence with no parole eligibility for 18 years, minus credit for five years in pre-trial custody. Khun-Khun and Jones would also get 18 years minus credit for time served for a net sentence of about 10 years.

Betton adjourned the proceedings until Wednesday morning when he will hand down the sentences.

There was extra security at the Kelowna Law Courts for Tuesday’s proceedings. Anti-gang police with a sniffer dog checked bushes and garbage cans outside the building. There were extra sheriffs both outside and inside.

Outside court, Crown spokesman Dan McLaughlin said the “plea resolution arrived at today reflects a frank and a thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the case.”

He said the Crown recognized there were credibility issues with some of the witnesses who were previous associates of the accused. And the Crown was also concerned “with the ongoing delay in this case,” McLaughlin said.

“The resolution today brings a certainty and finality to the proceedings,” he said.

Ruse read a lengthy agreed statement of facts laying out the events both before and after the shooting.

He said Khun-Khun went out hunting “on approximately 30 to 40 occasions to locations primarily in Vancouver and Coquitlam in an effort to locate the targets.”

He went past places he believed Amero, Bacon and Riach were staying. He checked out nightclubs, bars and restaurants. He collected vehicle descriptions and plate numbers, Ruse said.

“The stalking and intelligence gathering was undertaken knowing that the information obtained would likely be used to determine the optimal time and place for the ambush and killing of one or all of the targets,” Ruse said.

Both McBride and Jones travelled to the Okanagan weeks before the shooting, in an unsuccessful bid to kill Amero and Riach, “who they had reason to believe were visiting the City of Kelowna.”

But they got lucky on night of Aug. 13 when Sukh Dhak got an encrypted message that the three were in Kelowna staying at the Delta Grand Hotel.

About 11 p.m., McBride and Jones left Vancouver for the Okanagan. They got into town just before 4 a.m. and parked across from the hotel’s main entrance.

Khun-Khun also left the Lower Mainland for Kelowna, traveling with Manjinder Hairan — one of the shooters who was later killed before he was charged in the Bacon murder.

Sukh Dhak was in communication with several other associates in the wee hours of Aug. 14. Several of them ended up cooperating with the Crown. Their names are covered by a publication ban.

The Dhak hunters checked pubs, nightclubs and biker clubhouses before spotting Amero’s boat — named Steroids and Silicone — moored behind the Delta Grand. It was about 4 a.m. They knew they were closing in on their targets.

The hunters split into two groups and went to sleep for a few hours before meeting up the next morning and resuming their post near the hotel.

Amero, Bacon, Riach and two women with them — Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Black — checked out of the hotel about 12:20 p.m. to go for a short boat ride. The valet parked the Porsche in front of the hotel and loaded up the group’s luggage.

“At approximately 2:37 p.m., the Amero party began boarding the Porsche Cayenne,” Ruse said.

Amero was driving, Bacon was in the front passenger’s seat, Riach was behind Amero, with Hadden-Watts in the rear middle and Black behind Bacon.

A minute later, a Ford Explorer driven by Jones entered the hotel driveway and parked near the Cayenne, Ruse said.

Someone in the rear started firing an assault rifle at the Amero vehicle. McBride and Hairan — both with their faces covered — jumped out of the Explorer and continued to shoot.

Ruse showed the surveillance video of the terrifying scene, with people nearby scrambling for cover. Bacon could be seen falling out of the vehicle, as Riach jumped out his side.

Amero’s right arm was paralyzed. Hadden-Watts was hit in the neck and paralyzed. Black was also struck. Riach escaped injury.

“Pay attention to the number of bystanders that are present. This is not an unusual circumstance for this hotel on a sunny Sunday day. There are people arriving, leaving. There are employees, valet staff, taxis arriving with individuals. There are people walking their dogs. There are people walking by,” Ruse said.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

A former Hells Angel testified Thursday that members of the biker club would discuss some of their criminal activities at the Toronto clubhouse, but only after the business of their formal meetings was done.

But David Atwell also agreed with a lawyer for the Hells Angels that there were rules against such discussions, even though they did occur.

Lawyer Joe Arvay suggested the Angels ran their weekly “church” meetings in a similar fashion to the Boy Scouts.

“There was no criminal activity ever discussed at a church meeting. Isn’t that true?” Arvay asked.

“No, that’s not true,” said Atwell, who testified via video link from an undisclosed location.

“You are right in the first part — that there’s a rule you shouldn’t talk about it. But criminal activity would get leaked to a meeting.”

Atwell, a former police agent who spent his six years as a Hells Angel, is testifying at the civil forfeiture trial between the bikers and the B.C. government.

The director of civil forfeiture agreed to pay the former sergeant-at-arms of the Toronto chapter $75,000 for his evidence. The B.C. government is trying to get three clubhouses in East Vancouver, Kelowna and Nanaimo forfeited alleging that if the Hells Angels continue to own them, the buildings will be used for criminal activity.

Atwell has been given a new name and is in the Witness Protection Program after testifying in several Ontario criminal cases targeting the Hells Angels.

Under cross-examination Thursday, Arvay asked Atwell about several passages attributed to him in the book The Hard Way Out: My Life with the Hells Angels and Why I Turned Against Them, by Jerry Langton.

Arvay suggested the passages contradicted evidence Atwell had given this week in B.C. Supreme Court.

“Nothing illegal was discussed, just club business. It’s not illegal to be a Hells Angel and we all wanted to keep it that way,” Arvay read from the book.

“We never did any business in the clubhouse … because we knew that anybody could be listening there.”

Asked Arvay: “Does that accurately describe your views?”

Atwell suggested Langton had attributed things to him that he had never said.

“Yes things that were illegal were discussed in the clubhouse,” Atwell said.

“Almost all of my or most of my drug purchases as an agent originated in the clubhouse.”

But Atwell agreed with Arvay that members of the Hells Angels or those aspiring to join the biker gang were not forced to participate in criminal activities. Some of his former Hells Angels friends had legitimate jobs, Atwell agreed.

He also agreed that a Hells Angel could get kicked out of the group if caught committing a crime in a clubhouse.

“There was also a rule that you couldn’t commit crimes with your Hells Angels crests or patches or rings on because it would look bad toward the brand — the brand the Hells Angels, which was protected by the Hells Angels,” Atwell told Justice Barry Davies.

Atwell completed his evidence, but a second former Hells Angel is expected to testify Friday.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

Two men with gang links who were beaten while awaiting trials in Metro Vancouver jails have been awarded a total of almost $3.5 million by the B.C. government to settle their lawsuits.

Independent Soldier associate Jesse Margison was given a $3-million settlement after suffering severe brain damage when another inmate at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre stomped on his head in August 2012.

At the time, he was facing kidnapping charges with several others, but was found unfit to stand trial after the beating, which left him in a coma for several weeks.

Margison’s lawyers filed a civil suit seeking damages to cover the cost of his ongoing care. They argued that jail staff should have been aware of the threats Margison was facing from rival gangsters and taken steps to protect him. 

And Allen Ogonoski, a former gang member of Surrey Thugs Inc., was awarded $496,600 for the brain injury he suffered after being attacked in Surrey Pretrial by a rival gangster on Aug. 15, 2011.

His suit against the B.C. government alleged that he “was intentionally assaulted and battered” by another prisoner named Chris Fulmer with connections to the Red Scorpion gang, and that jail officials were negligent by not recognizing that he was incompatible with the Scorpion.

Both lawsuits were settled in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017. Some details of the agreements were contained in an annual government report titled “Payments under the Crown Proceeding Act,” which was tabled last week.

In Margison’s case, the report said: “The plaintiff claims the province is liable for damages the plaintiff suffered when assaulted by Leonard Cardinal on or about Aug. 12, 2012.

“He claims that in not preventing the assault, the province was negligent and/or breached his rights under section 7 and section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

And in both of the cases, the report said that a government lawyer advised that “the plaintiff might have a successful claim” and “that it is in the public interest to settle the claim.”

Lawyers for the two injured men could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Because of his brain injury, Margison was unable to assist his lawyers in piecing together the events that led up to the assault. They had filed several motions in B.C. Supreme Court to try to get North Fraser records related to gang inmates.

Cardinal pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the attack, telling a Surrey provincial court judge that he had heard Margison was going to beat him so launched a pre-emptive strike. The judge didn’t buy his explanation, and noted the horrendous injuries that Margison suffered.

Margison’s lawyers later learned their client had been visited at North Fraser in May 2012 by police to warn him that the Hells Angels wanted him dead.

And they determined that Cardinal had been in contact with a jailed Hells Angel just a day before the attack.

Margison’s close associate and former co-accused Troy McKinnon, who was convicted in the kidnapping case, was shot to death in a gangland hit in Nanaimo in January.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

A founding member of the Nanaimo Hells Angels suggested Friday that he had been unfairly convicted in an extortion case because of his membership in the notorious biker club.

Robert “Fred” Widdifield was brought from prison as a witness in the civil trial to determine if three Hells Angels clubhouses in east Vancouver, Nanaimo and Kelowna should be forfeited to the B.C. government.

When asked by government lawyer Brent Olthuis if he had a criminal record, Widdifield said: “I was convicted on a hearsay rule and I was given five years for being a Hells Angel.”

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies declared Widdifield an adverse witness in part because of his hostile demeanour on the stand.

Davies also referred to a pretrial interview Widdifield did with a lawyer for the civil forfeiture office in which he claimed the Nanaimo clubhouse had been “stolen” from the Hells Angels when it was seized in November 2007.

Widdifield “retired” from the Hells Angels in June 2014, something referenced in an affidavit his lawyer filed last summer as part of his appeal in the extortion case.

He lost that appeal of his extortion sentence in February.

Olthuis suggested the affidavit was an attempt by Widdifield to distance himself from the Hells Angels to improve his chances on appeal and to show that “any influence the club may have had on you was no longer an issue. Is that fair?”

Replied Widdifield: “I don’t know how you want to spin this thing. But what the hell are you trying to say?”

Davies intervened and told the retired biker to answer the question.

Widdifield admitted Friday that he has occasionally socialized with current Nanaimo Hells Angels despite swearing in his affidavit that he doesn’t maintain contact with any of them.

Asked Othuis: “In what sort of setting would you see them?”

Replied Widdifield: “At a restaurant or at a bar maybe. … I may have lunch with one or two of them.”

He also admitted that he had attended the house the chapter is now using for its meetings “maybe once or twice.”

Asked about the conflicting information in his affidavit, Widdifield testified: “I guess I lied about that.”

Olthuis asked Widdifield if he retired from the Hells Angels “based on any concern for the influence the chapter had on your life.”

“No,” Widdifield said. “I was 62 years old. I had been doing it for 40 years — since I was 23 years old. It was time to retire.”

Hells Angels lawyer Greg DelBigio asked Widdifield if he socialized with Nanaimo bikers after his retirement because they were Hells Angels or because they were old friends.

Fred Widdifield

They had been his friends for decades, he said.

“Nanaimo is a pretty small place,” Widdifield said. “You can bump into people at different places. … Some people I have known since I was six years old.”

Earlier Friday, Olthuis read parts of Widdifield’s earlier pretrial interview with government lawyers.

Widdifield described joining the Satan Angels motorcycle club in 1978 and then being part of the “patch-over” to the Hells Angels in 1983.

He agreed that he was once a director of the company that owns the Nanaimo clubhouse property and had been a party in the government’s lawsuit against the Hells Angels.

And he alleged the police might have stolen a computer from the clubhouse “when you raided the place” in November 2007.

The trial continues next week.

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan

When Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker stopped outside a Starbucks on a warm June afternoon six years ago, he had no idea that a rival gang had fixed a tracking device to his SUV.

Despite escaping earlier attempts on his life, Naicker ended up being an easy mark that day.

Two masked gunmen blasted him at the busy Port Moody intersection of St. Johns and Queens, before running off and hopping into a getaway vehicle. A black handgun was left near the scene.

Shocked onlookers saw Naicker collapse, fatally wounded, on the concrete beside a grey Infiniti SUV, driver’s door open, a window broken. It was June 25, 4:45 p.m.

Friends and family insist that Naicker, a convicted kidnapper and long-time gangster, had left his criminal past behind.

But to the rival gang that hunted him, it made no difference.

Just another target

He was just another target in a bloody feud that exploded after popular gangster Gurmit Dhak was gunned down outside Burnaby’s Metrotown mall in October 2010.

Dhak’s execution was the flashpoint for a near decade-long war that has raged across the province and left many dead and wounded in its wake. Few of those behind the violence have been held to account.

But earlier this month, three former Dhak associates — Jason McBride, Michael Jones and Jujhar Khun-Khun — pleaded guilty to participating in the fatal Kelowna attack that left Red Scorpion Jonathan Bacon dead in August 2011.

They admitted they plotted to kill Bacon, Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach — who had formed the Wolf Pack alliance — on the orders of Dhak’s younger brother Sukh in retaliation for the 2010 Burnaby murder.

RCMP cruisers flood the area around the Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel on Aug. 14, 2011, where Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon was murdered in a very public hail of bullets. (Photo: Don Sipos, PNG files)

Jones, 31, has also been identified as a suspect in the plot to kill Naicker during the sentencing of another man, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in August 2016.

The agreed statement of facts in the other case said that Jones accessed Naicker’s parkade before the shooting, fixed the tracking device to his vehicle and then waited for an opportunity to kill him.

So far, Jones has not been charged in connection with Naicker’s murder.

But he has admitted that he drove Bacon’s killers to Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel on Aug. 14, 2011, where McBride and the late Manny Hairan jumped out and began firing at a Porsche containing Bacon and his associates.

The bloodshed didn’t stop in Kelowna. Dozens of tit-for-tat murders and shootings followed.

Anti-gang police worked hard to stem the violence. After Bacon’s murder, they called a news conference to warn the public about the brewing tensions, explaining that the Dhak group was aligned with Sandip Duhre and his associates. The Dhak-Duhre side also had links to the already notorious UN gang, they said.

“I think the real flashpoint we saw was Gurmit Dhak getting killed — that was a big one,” Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said in a recent interview.

“The tit-for-tat violence was ongoing. Frankly — and I have said this publicly before — even today we are still dealing with a derivative of that ongoing conflict between those groups.”

A month after the Kelowna attack, Khun-Khun, who has now admitted he hunted Bacon, Amero and Riach on 30 to 40 occasions, was critically wounded in a Surrey shooting outside a house that Sukh Dhak was visiting.

Kelowna payback

In October, Dhak associate Stephen Leone, who had been part of the Kelowna hunt, was shot to death in Surrey. Hairan, one of Bacon’s killers, was wounded.

Things escalated further when Duhre was shot to death in the lobby of Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre on Jan. 17, 2012. Shocked players from the U.S. and Cuban women’s soccer teams, in town for an Olympic qualifying tournament, were nearby at the time.

The payback for Kelowna was continuing.

‘The tit-for-tat violence was ongoing,’ says Vancouver police Supt. Mike Porteous. ‘Frankly, even today we are still dealing with a derivative of that ongoing conflict between those groups.’ (Photo: Jason Payne, PNG files)

Porteous said a “litany” of shootings and murders that spanned months were “all related and they are all intertwined more or less from that particular conflict — that Wolf Pack alliance against the Dhak-Duhre-UN alliance.”

The conflict “accelerated when some of the leaders began to get taken out,” he said.

Armed hitmen were roaming the streets of Metro Vancouver looking for more targets. Police were watching them, later executing search warrants at apartments in Vancouver and Surrey and seizing caches of firearms. Two men connected to the Wolf Pack were later convicted of possessing the guns.

The trail of violence led all the way to Mexico when Tom Gisby, a major organized crime figure in B.C. for decades, was shot to death near Puerto Vallarta. Gisby had worked closely with Gurmit Dhak for years.

Meanwhile Sukh Dhak, who police believed was calling the shots on his side of the conflict, was on trial at the Vancouver Law Courts, accused of conspiracy and drug trafficking.

His case was on a break on Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Dhak and his burly bodyguard Thomas Mantel headed to Burnaby’s Executive Hotel on the Lougheed Highway. They arrived about 11:30 a.m. Their killer was there, too.

Both men were shot to death in front of shocked hotel workers. 

Sukh Dhak, younger brother of Gurmit Dhak, outside his B.C. Supreme Court drug trial in October 2012. The younger Dhak ordered retaliation against those he held responsible for his brother’s murder. Sukh Dhak was murdered a month later, in November at Burnaby’s Executive Hotel. (Photo: PNG files)

Even with the man behind the Kelowna shooting dead, the Wolf Pack wasn’t satisfied.

On Jan. 15, 2013, two of the Dhak pals directly involved in the Bacon murder were targeted on a quiet laneway in Surrey. Khun-Khun was critically injured, but miraculously survived again. Bacon shooter Manny Hairan was killed.

Within weeks, police announced first-degree murder charges against Khun-Khun, McBride and Jones for the Bacon hit and the attempts on Amero, Riach and two women passengers. 

McBride, now 42, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder May 1. The close friend of Gurmit Dhak will not be eligible for parole for 13 years. Khun-Khun and Jones were handed 18-year terms for conspiracy and will have to serve five more before they can apply for parole.

On the day of Gurmit Dhak’s funeral, McBride was one of several associates who met up afterwards in Vancouver’s Kensington Park. Anti-gang police tailed them, fearing there would be retaliation. Two of the men there were arrested with loaded guns, charged and later convicted.

‘Bury my brother’

Retired Vancouver Police gang expert Doug Spencer was one of the officers monitoring the funeral that day.

He remembers talking to devastated younger brother Sukh, who was already being urged to retaliate.

“Sukh says all his friends, ‘All they want me to do is kill the guys who killed Gurmit. All I want to do is bury my brother,’” recalled Spencer, who now does anti-gang workshops in schools for the Odd Squad.

Spencer said Gurmit Dhak was a different breed of gangster than some of the younger, more violent guys involved today.

“His attitude was make money, not war,” Spencer said. “He was old school. He was well-respected. He didn’t cross people. He just wanted to make money. He was an anomaly, really. None of them are like that now.”

The elder Dhak did business with all sides, including Hells Angels. Full-patch bikers wearing their death-head vests or “colours” attended his funeral.

Spencer said he first met the Dhak brothers when they were in elementary school in south Vancouver.

“They were normal kids. Nice kids. You would go up to talk to them and they were like, ‘Hi, officer.’ ”

Gurmit’s path changed when he was in high school. Lotus gang leader Raymond Chan approached him “right off the school grounds,” Spencer said.

“He basically pulled up in a red Porsche and said if you come and work for me, you can have one of these.”

Dhak bit. He was mentored by Chan, who himself was murdered in Richmond in May 2003.

‘I have got to worry’

Spencer said Dhak did stints in jail, where he made more criminal connections and enhanced his underworld reputation. The longest was a seven-year term for manslaughter after an associate in his vehicle shot and killed a 19-year-old outside a Vancouver nightclub in 1999.

“When Gurmit was in jail, he reached out to me and asked me to go talk to his little brother and get him away from the guys he was hanging out with,” Spencer said.

Years later, Spencer approached the elder Dhak about doing an anti-gang video for the Odd Squad to warn others about the perils of gang life. Dhak eventually agreed, making prophetic statements in the eerie video filmed months before his slaying.

“Every day I’ve got to look over my shoulder,” Dhak told Spencer. “I have got to worry — if I jump out of my car am I going to get shot? Or I could be walking in the mall and walking out and get shot. I don’t know.”

Almost eight years later, no one has been charged in Gurmit Dhak’s murder. Amero, the Hells Angel wounded in Kelowna, was arrested earlier this year and charged with conspiracy to kill Sukh Dhak and Sandip Duhre. Two Amero associates are charged with Duhre’s murder. All three remain in pre-trial custody.

Spencer thinks that Dhak would be devastated by all the blood shed in his name.

“I think he would say it wasn’t worth it. I think he would say now ‘what was I thinking?’ ” Spencer said. “He would be really upset about the fact that his brother went down. He tried to be a good big brother to him.”

Key events in the Dhak-Durhe-UN conflict with the Wolf Pack alliance

• Oct. 16, 2010: Popular underworld figure Gurmit Dhak is shot to death outside Burnaby’s Metrotown mall.

• Oct. 21, 2010: Two men linked to the Wolf Pack side, Arash (Monty) Younus and Philip Ley, shot at in their vehicle on Westminster Highway in Richmond.

• Oct. 27, 2010: After Dhak’s funeral, police covertly follow some mourners to Vancouver’s Kensington Park. Two of them — Christopher Iser and Mike Shirazi — are caught with loaded firearms and are arrested. Police said the group was plotted to kill Phil Ley.

• Dec. 12, 2010: Dhak associates shoot up a birthday party at Best Neighbours restaurant on Oak Street in Vancouver. Ten people are wounded, including Wolf Pack member Damion Ryan.

• Aug. 14, 2011: Gunmen linked to the Dhak group carry out a brazen shooting outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel that results in the murder of Jonathan Bacon and injuries to Larry Amero and two women in their vehicle. Gangster James Riach escapes injury. Bacon, Amero and Riach had joined forces in the Wolf Pack gang alliance.

• Sept. 7, 2011: Police issue a public warning that Wolf Pack associates are looking for revenge against Dhak-Duhre-UN opponents for the Kelowna shooting.

• Sept. 16, 2011: Dhak associate Jujhar Khun-Khun is shot outside a Surrey house that Sukh Dhak was visiting. He survives.

• Oct. 2, 2011: Dhak associate Billy Woo found dead on logging road near Squamish.

• Oct. 22, 2011: Dhak associate Stephen Leone, who was in Kelowna helping in the Bacon hunt two months earlier, is shot to death in Surrey.

• Jan. 16, 2012: Longtime Dhak associate and major underworld criminal Tom Gisby is targeted with an explosive device near Whistler. But the device fails to detonate.

• Jan. 17, 2012: Sandip (Dip) Duhre is executed in the lobby of Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre.

• Jan. 19, 2012: Dhak associate Sean Beaver is shot to death in Surrey, second man wounded.

• April 28, 2012: B.C. gangster Gisby, 47, is shot to death while vacationing in Mexico.

• May 30, 2012: Duhre associate Gurbinder Singh (Bin) Toor, 35, is shot to death outside a Port Moody community centre.

• June 25, 2012: Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker gunned down in Port Moody.

• June 27, 2012: Wolf Pack-linked Phil Ley and Dean Wiwchar are charged with firearms offences after police investigating the Duhre murder search apartments linked to them.

• Nov. 26, 2012: Sukh Dhak and his bodyguard Thomas Mantel are shot and killed at the Executive Hotel in Burnaby.

• Jan. 13, 2013: Dhak associate Manjot Dhillon is shot to death in Surrey after posting anti-Wolf Pack images on his Facebook page.

• Jan. 15, 2013: Dhak associates Jujhar Khun-Khun and Manny Hairan are targeted in a Surrey shooting. Khun-Khun is critically wounded. Hairan, identified as one of the Kelowna shooters, dies.

• Feb. 25, 2013: Dhak associates Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones are charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in connection with the Kelowna shooting and Jonathan Bacon murder.

• March 18, 2013: Wolf Pack associate Rabih Alkhalil is charged with the murder of Sandip Duhre.

• Jan. 2, 2014: Red Scorpion Matthew Campbell is stabbed to death in Abbotsford after a run-in with rivals. An associate of Jujhar Khun-Khun is charged, but the charge is later stayed.

• Jan 2, 2015: Dhak associate Arundeep Cheema, 23, is shot to death in a vehicle outside the home of an associate.

• June 7, 2016: Wolf Pack gangster Sukh Deo, whose name surfaced in connection with the 2012 murder of Duhre pal Bin Toor, is shot to death in Toronto in a targeted hit.

• July 31, 2016: Former Dhak associate Sean Kelly, 27, is shot to death in Surrey.

• May 29, 2017: Kelowna murder trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones begins before Justice Allan Betton and goes on until October, when the proceedings adjourn to deal with a disclosure issue.

• Jan. 25, 2018: Hells Angel Larry Amero, wounded in the 2011 Kelowna shooting, is charged with conspiracy to kill gangster Sandip Duhre and Sukh Dhak in 2012. His Wolf Pack associate Dean Wiwchar is charged with murdering Duhre and plotting to kill Dhak.

• May 1, 2018: Dhak associates Jujhar Khun-Khun and Michael Jones plead guilty to conspiracy to kill Amero, Bacon and Riach in Kelowna in August 2011. Jason McBride pleads guilty to second-degree murder.

A violent Lower Mainland gang was contracting itself out to commit murders for larger, more-established organized crime groups, Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said Thursday.

But the “Gill group”, headed by 21-year-old Taqdir Gill, has now been dismantled after a months-long investigation that resulted in seven arrests and the seizure of four guns, Porteous said.

“Project Temper, a gang violence suppression operation, has resulted in the dismantling of the Gill group. This violent crime group was comprised of several individuals,” Porteous told reporters. “The VPD is committed to aggressively targeting people who pose the most risk to our communities.”

Gill, Walta Abay, 23, Hitkaran Johal, 19, are all charged with conspiracy to commit murder between Oct. 5 and 27, 2017.

Both Gill and Abay are also charged with possession of a loaded, restricted or prohibited firearm on Oct. 26, and being in a vehicle knowing there was a gun inside.

Porteous said the murder conspiracy involved “several victims” — some of whom were rival gang members.

But a Vancouver businessman with no gang links was also targeted by the group, Porteous said.

None of the victims are listed in court documents obtained by Postmedia.

Porteous said at one time the Gill group was aligned with the Kang faction of Brothers Keepers, which has traditionally been on the Red Scorpion side of a decade-long regional conflict.

But Postmedia has learned that the Gill group had switched allegiances to the United Nations side.

“I would suggest that they were working within a cell themselves, but they were working more on a contract basis for other crime groups or bigger crime groups,” Porteous said.

“The way these gangs are structured … across the region — there’s sort of the Red Scorpion-associated people and on the other side there’s the United Nations-associated people.”

He said smaller groups of upstarts or younger would-be gangsters form their own smaller gangs and align themselves with one side or the other.

Also charged are Simrat Lally and Pawandeep Chopra, both 20, and two youths who were 17 when their alleged offences occurred and therefore cannot be identified.

Lally is facing counts of conspiracy to discharge a firearm and conspiracy to commit arson, as well as two counts of possessing a firearm and one of being in a car containing a gun. Chopra allegedly possessed a loaded or restricted firearm on Oct. 30 in Vancouver. One youth is facing firearms charges while the other is charged with conspiracy to commit arson.

Porteous said the Gill group came to the attention of anti-gang investigators after a series of shootings last August.

“There was a spike in gang violence,” he said. “They were proactively targeted. We used a variety of police methods to gather evidence, including surveillance.”

Because the gang operated across the region, the VPD worked with the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, Porteous said.

CFSEU Chief Officer Kevin Hackett said the teamwork is “critical” and will continue.

“The coordinated and strategic engagement, disruption, and enforcement efforts that we have collectively undertaken since the start of this joint operation will continue as part of our long-term regional strategy,” Hackett said.

Even young gangsters who are not criminally sophisticated, like those in the Gill group, seem to have easy access to firearms, Porteous said.

“We are seeing more and more weapons on the street. We are close to the border and a lot of stuff comes from across the line,” he said. “They are easily accessing weapons, so it is not that difficult. They are out there on the market for them to purchase.”

Porteous defended anti-gang programs aimed at prevention despite the young ages of those involved in the Gill group.

“There are 19, 20 and 21 year olds conspiring to commit murder, so apparently it wasn’t sinking in for them. But it does work for many others,” Porteous said of programs like End Gang Life.

“The overall education and prevention strategies that the police are using across the region are reducing (gang involvement) at the grassroots level.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

twitter.com/kbolan