Three gangsters linked to the late Sukh Dhak have been charged in connection with the August 2011 murder of Red Scorpion Jon Bacon in Kelowna.
Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, Jason Thomas McBride and Michael Jones were charged with first degree murder and attempted murder.
Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, made the announcement at a Delta news conference Monday.
The CFSEU has been working with Kelowna RCMP since the brazen daylight shooting outside the Delta Grand hotel and casino, which left Bacon’s associates Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach wounded.
Amero was seriously hurt and is now in jail in Montreal where he is facing cocaine importing charges. Riach was grazed and walked away from the scene, but has maintained a low profile since the shooting.
At 36, McBride has a long history with police. His criminal record dates back to 1998 in Victoria where he was convicted of break-and-enter and possessing break-and-enter tools. He was later convicted of robbery, for which he got a 10-year firearms prohibition. In 2005, he was caught with a 40-calibre, semi-automatic Glock handgun in the front passenger seat of his Lincoln Navigator.
When his close friend Gurmit Dhak was gunned down in 2010, McBride was one of several gangsters who police saw leave Dhak’s memorial service to gather at Vancouver’s Kensington Park.
Two of those who were in the park, Christopher Iser and Mike Shirazi, were later convicted for possession of firearms they had with them that day. The Crown argued at trial that a plot to murder Philip Ley in retaliation for the Gurmit Dhak killing was being hatched at the park that day.
A judge who sentenced Iser laid out what happened.
“Police set up surveillance of attendees at Gurmit Dhak’s memorial ceremony in Surrey, British Columbia and noted the presence of four individuals who were seen later that day with Mr. Iser at Kensington Park. These four individuals were Viet “Billy” Tran, Jason McBride, Anton Ali-Moffat, and Thanh Nguyen. The four men were seen getting into a Ford Edge vehicle and were followed covertly to Vancouver,” Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Harbans Dhillon said in her reasons.
“McBride was of particular interest to police because of his known connection and close association with Dhak. Police surveillance of McBride confirmed his travel to Vancouver in a Ford Edge vehicle and later noted his arrival at Kensington Park in a BMW driven by Tran. The Ford Edge with Nguyen and Ali-Moffat made its way separately to the park.”
She said that “there is a high level of suspicion arising from the meeting at Kensington Park to which Mike Shirazi drove Mr. Iser to meet Jason McBride, a man with known gang affiliations whose associate (Dhak) had recently been killed by gun violence. Shirazi arrived in a vehicle loaded with weapons, ammunition, and a GPS tracking unit capable of being attached to other vehicles. With balaclavas, gloves, binoculars, a night vision device, and a map book, the Jeep contained all the items needed to covertly track and, if desired, shoot an adversary. This is particularly compelling evidence of Shirazi’s guilt because of the direct and circumstantial evidence, including DNA, connecting him to the vehicle and to items in the secret compartments. Mr. Shirazi has pled guilty to being in possession of the two assault rifles.”
Despite being years younger, Khun-Khun, 25, is also well-known to police.
He was critically injured in a September 2011 shooting in Surrey as he picked up Sukh Dhak from a residence there.
And just last month, Khun-Khun, 25, was shot again in the same attack that saw gang-mate Manjinder Singh Hairan executed.
Khun-Khun, nick-named Giani, was also arrested in Abbotsford last September in connection with a shooting outside the home of Bacon associate Brian (Shrek) Dhaliwal, but was never charged.
After the 2011 shooting, then Gang Task Force head Supt. Tom McCluskie said Khun-Khun’s lifestyle had led to him being targeted.
“It’s no surprise to the policing community that Mr. Khun-Khun was shot. He chooses to live a lifestyle immersed in continual violence. Being seriously wounded or murdered is often the outcome of those who chose this direction in their life,” McCluskie said.
Khun-Khun was also arrested in Nanaimo in August 2011 with two associates after RCMP pulled over a 2008 Acura and found 27.5 grams of crack cocaine, 7.5 grams of marijuana, 108 ecstasy pills, $1,700 in Canadian cash, scales and a radiojamming system.
Khun-Khun was also charged in Edmonton two years ago in connection with an armed robbery of a jewelry store there.
And he was convicted of kidnapping in Surrey Provincial Court in November 2007 after holding a stranger at gunpoint for several hours so he and an accomplice could steal his commercial truck.
The judge described the kidnapping as a “random, brazen act of violence on an unsuspecting and innocent member of the public.”
Khun-Khun was also in the news that year when his 19-year-old fiance died after falling from the truck he was driving in Surrey. No charges were laid.
Several other suspects in the Bacon murder have since been killed in targeted hits, including Sukh Dhak and his bodyguard Thomas Mantel.
Within weeks of the Bacon-Amero-Riach shooting, the Lower Mainland saw retaliatory violence.
Those close to Dhak, as well as the Duhre gang, were wounded and killed in a series of shootings. The violence continued in 2012, starting with the murder of Sandip Duhre in the lobby of the Sheraton Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver and ending with the double murder of Dhak and Mantel outside the Executive Hotel in Burnaby in late November.
And the revenge killings appear to have continued into 2013 with Dhak associates Manny Hairan and Manjot Dhillon murdered in Surrey in January.
At the time of the Kelowna shooting, Bacon, Amero, Riach and some of their gang associates had formed a loose coalition they dubbed the Wolf Pack to carry on their criminal business.
Amero is now in jail in Montreal after being arrested there last year in a major undercover drug investigation. Riach has maintained a low profile, coming and going from B.C. regularly.
CFSEU Chief Supt. Dan Malo told the Sun last fall that the Kelowna shooting wasn’t the starting point in the tit-for-tat shootings that have plagued B.C.
In fact, it was the murder of Dhak’s older brother Gurmit in October 2010 outside Metrotown Mall that was the “flashpoint” for the violence..
“The … conflict goes back to the murder of Gurmit Dhak. There were some incidents that occurred prior to that, but it was his murder that’s had an enduring ripple effect, changing the gang landscape in the province,” Malo said in October 2012.
“B.C. gangsters, who used to have their home base here, are relocating to other parts of the country, but continuing to orchestrate and export violence into B.C. from their new bases of operation.”
The violence has spilled over into other countries. Dhak associate Tom Gisby, who lived in Vancouver, was shot to death in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico last April.
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