Bacon, who lost a bid in January to be released on bail pending the upcoming trial, will now remain in custody even longer before getting his day in court.

Dan McLaughlin, who speaks for the B.C. Attorney General’s criminal justice branch, confirmed Thursday that the case is now set for jury selection on Sept. 4.

“The adjournment of the Bacon trial was ordered when it became apparent that the April trial date was no longer viable,” McLaughlin said in an email. “The scheduling issues that precipitated the adjournment were discussed in camera and cannot be reported.”

Bacon had been facing murder and conspiracy charges in connection with the Surrey Six slayings until last Dec. 1 when a B.C. Supreme Court judge stayed both counts after a secret pretrial hearing. The Crown is appealing that ruling.

But he is still facing one count of counselling someone to commit murder in connection with the failed attempt to kill a former associate in December 2008.

That trial had been set to begin on April 3.

Bacon has been in jail since April 3, 2009, when he was arrested at his parents’ former Abbotsford home in connection with the Surrey Six case. He was originally charged with plotting the murder of gang rival Corey Lal, as well as Lal’s first-degree murder on Oct. 19, 2007 in a Surrey high-rise.

Hitmen from Bacon‘s Red Scorpion gang — Cody Haevischer and Matthew Johnston — were convicted of forcing their way into a penthouse apartment in the Balmoral Tower and executing Lal, his brother Michael and drug dealers Ryan Bartolomeo and Eddie Narong, as well as bystanders Chris Mohan and Ed Schellenberg. The hitmen were accompanied by a man who can only be identified as Person X, who earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Both Haevischer and Johnston appealed their 2014 first-degree murder and conspiracy convictions.

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Kevin LeClair had just left the Browns Socialhouse in Langley’s Thunderbird Mall on a cold Friday afternoon nine years ago.

He got into his pickup truck and began to drive off, when two gunmen started blasting him. Terrified shoppers ducked for cover. It was 4 p.m.

As the killers took off, people nearby ran to help LeClair, his foot jammed on the gas of the revving pickup in front of the IGA grocery store.

LeClair, a Red Scorpion gangster who was once aligned with the rival United Nations gang, died two days later in hospital.

And now a B.C. Supreme Court judge will decide whether alleged UN hitman Cory Vallee was one of LeClair’s killers that day.

The 41-year-old former North Vancouver garbage man is charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon and their Red Scorpion associates between Jan. 1, 2008, and Feb. 9, 2009.

The year-long trial before Justice Janice Dillon finally ended this week after a month of closing arguments. Dillon said that she would deliver her verdict on June 1.

Crown prosecutors argued there was plenty of evidence to convict Vallee on both counts, including police surveillance, intercepted calls and conversations of gang members talking about the Bacon plot and a hired “hitman” dubbed Frankie or Panther — nicknames Vallee used. And they said their key witnesses, ex-UN members who can only be called A, B, C and D due to a publication ban, should be believed despite their admitted criminal histories.

“The fact that these witnesses who were embedded in this world came here to testify and were willing to give that information about all their former colleagues and that it’s consistent among themselves has value to this court,” said prosecutor Alex Burton.

“They all testified about scouting or hunting the Bacons and the RS (Red Scorpions), of reporting known locations and addresses of the Bacons and the RS — such as residences, gyms, restaurants — about gathering and distributing photographs, the need to bring in someone specifically to wreak havoc.”

Vallee defence lawyer Eric Gottardi said A, B, C and D blamed his client simply to “save their own skin” and that by co-operating they had “escaped punishment for murders.”

“The Crown’s evidence in this case falls markedly short of establishing that Cory Vallee was the person who shot and killed Kevin LeClair. It falls markedly short of establishing that Cory Vallee was an out-of-town hit man named Frankie. And it even fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Vallee was a full-fledged member of the UN or the conspiracy until after the indictment period, if at all,” Gottardi said.

HIGH-PROFILE COURT CASE SHOWS DEPTH OF BRUTALITY AND DESTRUCTION IN GANG WAR

Revelations at the trial showed the long trail of death and destruction in a bloody Lower Mainland gang war that began long before LeClair was hunted and shot.

Witnesses provided details of more than a dozen other shootings and murders between 2005 and 2010 that they said were part of the same conflict. 

Some were high-profile shootings, like the attempted execution of Jonathan Bacon in the driveway of his parents’ Abbotsford home on Sept. 21, 2006. He survived only to be killed in another targeted attack in August 2011.

Other murders disclosed at the Vallee trial had much less public attention, like the March 3, 2006, slaying of Bacon associate Dave Tumber outside an apartment building at Gladwin and Maclure in Abbotsford.

Many of the shootings led to violent retaliation, according to evidence of A, B, C and D.

And in most of the other attacks they recounted in court, no one has been charged, including for killings the UN arranged in Argentina and Mexico, where Vallee was arrested in August 2014 after three and a half years on the run.

Whatever the verdict is in this case, the decade-long police investigation has already yielded results.

In July 2013, five UN members and associates — Yong Sung John Lee, Dilun Heng, Barzan Tilli-Choli, Karwan Ahmet Saed and Ion Kroitoru — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kill the Bacons and were handed sentences of between 11 and 14 years, minus time served. A year later, Amir Eghtesad also pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and was sentenced to seven years in jail.

Two others connected to the gang are scheduled to go to trial next summer.

UN gang founder Clay Roueche has also been implicated in the murder plot but has never been charged. He was arrested on May 17, 2008, after his flight to Mexico for a UN wedding was diverted to the US, where he was facing charges and was arrested. He later pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering and was sentenced to 30 years.

BRAZEN SHOOTINGS BROUGHT GANG WAR TO PUBLIC ATTENTION

RCMP Asst. Commissioner Kevin Hackett, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Agency, was the team commander of the UN gang investigation when it started a decade ago.

Hackett said in an interview that he couldn’t comment specifically on details of the Vallee trial, given that the case is still before the courts.

But speaking generally, he said the gang war at the time reached unprecedented levels of violence across the region.

“You already know from the evidence in court that there was a conspiracy to go after the Red Scorpions and there were tit-for-tat retaliations and murders that were going on,” Hackett said this week.

“In 2008 and 2009, there was a definite spike and the frequency and retaliatory nature of the violence was unprecedented.”

He said the gangsters involved at that time were making “coordinated, determined efforts to go after their rivals.”

Historically, organized crime in B.C. had been more discreet, targeting enemies in remote locations or sometimes simply making someone disappear. The public violence during the conflict was a disturbing evolution.

“The disregard for other citizens’ safety is what really brought this to the forefront,” Hackett said.

“When someone disappears or ends up murdered, especially someone innocent, that’s bad enough because a life has been taken. But the potential risk to the public when violence happens in public spaces is one of the key things that really motivates us to say we have to stop this.”

The Vallee trial heard about plans to drop an aerial bomb on the Bacons’ home or possibly get a rocket launcher to help with the killings. UN members drove around city streets in groups hunting their targets, guns loaded and ready.

Hackett remembers getting the call when LeClair was gunned down in the crowded shopping plaza parking lot just off the Trans-Canada Highway.

Homicide investigators worked closely with the anti-gang agency that Hackett now leads, as well as with their counterparts across the country and even internationally.

“That is another indication of the scope and some of the tentacles of this group and some of the groups in the Lower Mainland. It is not just localized. They operate across the country in other provinces and in other countries, which can add to the complexity of the investigation,” he said.

In the heyday of the UN, members wore gaudy gold jewelry and tacky T-shirts with their motto “honour, loyalty, respect” written in both English and Chinese characters. In reality, there was no loyalty.

The UN grew so paranoid about potential turncoats that gang leaders arranged the murders of their own friends in both Mexico and Argentina, the former gangsters said.

Jesse “Egon” Adkins was a suspect in 4both the LeClair hit and the Vancouver murder of Raj Soomel on Sept. 29, 2009. Soomel was mistakenly shot as the gang hunted for Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker after taking a contract to kill three people for the late Gurmit Dhak.

Ex-UN gangster C testified that after the Soomel slaying, Adkins and Vallee were smuggled into Mexico through a Los Angeles cartel contact of Khamla Wong, a respected UN gang elder now in prison in Thailand.

But after several months, Adkins was getting edgy, talking about returning to B.C. and making derogatory comments about the UN — something that alarmed C, he said.

Worried that Adkins might flip on the gang, C confided in Wong.

“Kham discussed it with the Mexicans that Jesse might be a problem and the Mexicans said that they’re going to take care of it,” C said.

He said he later learned from both Wong and Vallee that Adkins was “killed in Mexico by the Mexican cartel people.” Adkins’ body was never found.

It wasn’t the only time C was in on the murder of a friend.

Adam Naname (Nam) Kataoka was a UN associate who had “a mental breakdown” and began to rob people close to the gang.

C testified that a decision was made to send his pal Kataoka to Argentina in 2009, purportedly to work as a drug tester. But the real plan was to have him killed.

The UN got the hit done in Argentina “so that the heat and the problems wouldn’t be affecting us in Vancouver,” C said.

Kataoka was found on Oct. 28, 2009, in a Buenos Aires parking lot lying face down, wearing latex gloves, with bullet wounds in his head, stomach and leg.

The ex-gangster witnesses testified about at least 10 murders and five attempted murders where no suspect has yet been charged.

Hackett said that police often know who the suspects are in gangland slayings, even when they don’t have enough evidence for charges to be approved.

“It comes down to the strength of the case, the viability of getting witnesses to testify in trials and sometimes you have to go with the ones that have the best chance of success,” he said.

“In many of these cases, we know the suspects or accused are responsible for several offences,  so if they are found guilty on one or two that can be a success.”

And, he said, investigators don’t give up even when cases go on for years.

More than 500 officers have worked on the UN investigation. More than one million pages of evidence were prepared and disclosed in the case.

“We are happy with the investigation to date. Like in any investigation, we don’t stop until we’ve done everything that we can to hold those responsible to account,” Hackett said.

That means continuing the hunt for Conor D’Monte, who is also charged in the conspiracy to kill the Bacons and in LeClair’s murder. He is believed to have fled Canada in 2011 around the time that he was charged.

“I think that is another important message. We don’t give up,” Hackett said. “As much as there are new files that need investigation, we are committed to following through with the ones that we’ve started because you owe that to the public and to the victims’ families.”

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Timeline of UN-Red Scorpion war violence referenced at Cory Vallee trial 

Aug. 28, 2005 — Hartinder (Harry) Gill and his girlfriend Lexi Madsen shot to death in Abbotsford as they sat in a car in a parking lot on College Drive about 9:30 p.m. Former UN witness “A” said he drove a “blocker” car and that others in his gang opened fire on Gill and Madsen.

March 3, 2006 — Bacon associate Charndev (Dave) Tumber, 30, was killed in a shooting as he sat inside a vehicle about 11 p.m. at an apartment building at Gladwin Road and Maclure Road in Abbotsford.

Sept. 21, 2006 — Jonathan Bacon was seriously injured in a shooting in the driveway of his parents’ Abbotsford home in the 35400-block of Strathcona Court at about 8 p.m.

Sept. 22, 2006 — Just five hours after Bacon was shot, UN gangster Ciaran “Q” D’Monte was wounded in a shooting outside a Chilliwack nightclub. Bacon associate Clayton Eheler was one of two men charged and later acquitted. Former UN gangster D testified that D’Monte’s brother and UN leader Conor D’Monte was also there when “an individual had followed them into the parking lot and produced a firearm and fired shots in their direction and hit his brother Q in the abdominal area.”

February 2007 — Chilliwack resident and Bacon pal Clayton Eheler was shot near his house as he drove with a woman and a child. He survived.

May 8, 2008 — Popular UN gang member Duane Meyer was shot outside an Abbotsford house where his children were staying. Ex-UN members testified they were surprised at the hit by the Red Scorpions as it showed sophistication and an ability to do surveillance on targets

May 9, 2008 — Stereo installer Jonathan Barber was shot to death in Burnaby after being mistaken for a Bacon brother as he drove their Porsche Cayenne. His girlfriend was seriously injured.

Nov. 7, 2008 — Ex-UN gangster C testified that another UN member took out a hit on a North Vancouver man named Kenn Buxton, who was shot but survived.

Feb. 6, 2009 — Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair, a former UN man dubbed Traitor by his old gang, was fatally wounded in a targeted afternoon shooting after leaving a pub in a busy Langley plaza. He died two days later in hospital.

March 3, 2009 — Five UN members and associates are arrested and charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers. But the violence continued.

March 30, 2009 — Ryan Richards and Sean Murphy, young traffickers who had been on the Bacon side but wanted to move over to the UN, were killed and dumped hours apart in Abbotsford. Ex-UN gangster D testified he believed his gang had killed them.

Sept. 27, 2009 — Teddy Kim, shot and wounded, in Burnaby. Witness B admitted to luring Kim to a meeting where he was then targeted by gunfire.

Sept. 29, 2009 — Attempted hit on Independent Soldiers founder Randy Naicker resulted in mistaken slaying of Raj Soomel, another resident of a Vancouver halfway house. Naicker was later shot to death in Port Moody.

Oct. 14, 2009 — Former UN gangster B couldn’t recall the name on the third hit Gurmit Dhak contracted the UN to do, but it was likely Jonathan “Mad Dog” Chang, of the Wolf Pack alliance, who was shot to death inside a Mercedes SUV in a back-alley parking lot in the 7700-block Edmonds Street about 4:30 p.m. outside an MMA gym.

Oct. 28, 2009 — Ex-UN gangster C testified that the UN arranged to kill his close friend and gang associate Adam Naname “Nam” Kataoka by sending him to Argentina under the guise of working as a drug tester. Kataoka was found in a Buenos Aires parking lot lying face down, wearing latex gloves, with bullet wounds in his head, stomach and leg.

Late 2009 or early 2010 — C testified that he was worried Jesse “Egon” Adkins, who had fled to Mexico with Cory Vallee in the fall of 2009 was going to rat on the gang. So C told senior UN member Khamla Wong who arranged for a cartel contact to kill Adkins. His body was never found.

Convicted cocaine trafficker Jarrod Bacon has won an appeal of his 2017 parole revocation by arguing that he never should have been released in the first place.

The lawyer for the middle gangster brother argued that the Parole Board of Canada had miscalculated Bacon’s statutory release date, letting him out 16 months too early.

Most federal prisoners get statutory release after serving two-thirds of their sentence.  

Bacon got out in February 2017, and was ordered to live in a halfway house, not associate with criminals, and stay out of drinking establishments.

Then last September, the parole board revoked his parole for violating those conditions after he was caught drinking in a strip club with another known criminal and then providing police with a false identity.

But he went to the parole board’s appeal division and won his argument about being let out too early, according to a ruling released Tuesday.

Parole board members Howard Bruce and Steven Dubreuil said in the Feb. 21 ruling that the board had no jurisdiction to revoke the parole, given that Bacon had been released too soon.

“You state that your file information indicated that you were serving a sentence of seven years and two months and that your sentence was actually nine years and two months,” the board members noted in their ruling. “You thus argue that you should not have been in the community on statutory release as your eligibility date was not Feb. 11, 2017, but rather June 14, 2018, and by extension that you should not have been revoked by the board.”

They continued by saying that in Bacon’s case “the board did not have the jurisdiction to review your conduct while on statutory release.”

The pair set aside the ruling from September.

A board representative did not respond to a request for additional information about whether Bacon will remain in jail until June.

Bacon, now 34, was convicted in 2012 of conspiracy to traffic cocaine after being caught in a sting by undercover police. He was originally sentenced to 12 years, minus time served, but that was increased to 14 years on appeal. 

When Bacon was released last year, he objected to being forced to live in a halfway house. He claimed his life would be in danger if he was in a facility known to others in the criminal underworld. The parole board described Bacon as a member of the Red Scorpion gang with “considerable influence on the gang environment in British Columbia.”

His brother Jonathan was gunned down in Kelowna in August 2011. Three men from a rival gang are currently on trial for the murder. And his other brother Jamie remains in pre-trial custody charged with counselling the murder of a former associate in December 2008. Jamie Bacon had been charged in connection with the Surrey Six murders in October 2007, but those charges were stayed by a judge last December. The Crown is appealing that ruling.

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A high-profile B.C gangster has been sentenced to life in prison in the Philippines for his involvement in an international drug-trafficking ring that set up in the Southeast Asian country.

Independent Soldier James Riach, who is part of the Wolf Pack gang alliance, got the news in a Manila courtroom Wednesday, along with his Canadian co-accused Ali Shirazi.

Judge Selma Alaras issued an 11-page ruling, saying both Riach and Shirazi had possessed more than $2.5 million Cdn worth of ecstasy and shabu — a local pill that contains methamphetamine and caffeine.

The Canadians were also ordered to pay a $12,000 fine.

The Philippines National Bureau of Investigation arrested Riach and Shirazi at their rented Manila condo in January 2014. They had been in the country for about three months.

Also arrested at another apartment and charged that day was Riach’s long-time B.C. associate Barry Espadilla. But Espadilla was released 18 months later after an appeals court judge accepted his lawyer’s argument that police lied to get search warrants in the case.

He has since returned to Canada.

Riach had been on bail in the Philippines — even getting married there a couple of years ago — before being taken into custody again this week.

Ali Shirazi and James Riach before 2014 court appearance in Manila.

B.C.’s anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit got news of the guilty verdict and sentence shortly after it happened, Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said Wednesday.

She said the lengthy sentence should be a warning to other B.C. gangsters who think they can get into the drug trade abroad.

“While we cannot speak to the court decisions in another country, there is no doubt that the life sentence that was handed down is significant and will undoubtedly send a message to people from B.C. and Canada, that drug trafficking in other countries may, if you’re convicted, come with a serious penalty, including imprisonment for life,” Winpenny said. “In the case of Mr. Riach and Mr. Shirazi, we will continue to watch to see if there are further court proceedings or if this is the end.”

IS clothing seized by police in Kelowna

Global Affairs Canada official Philip Hannan said he couldn’t comment on whether any consular services have been given to the Canadians because he had not yet had the chance to liaise with “mission staff.”

According to the Canadian government’s website, there is no Offender Transfer Treaty between Canada and the Philippines. When such treaties exist, Canadians imprisoned abroad can apply to serve all or part of their sentence in Canada closer to their families.

Riach’s friend Chris Seymour said that he plans to campaign to get the B.C. man returned to Canada. 

“I sure hope that the government will step in now and do something for him. He didn’t run on his bail or anything. This is not right and would never have stood up in any kind of (Canadian) court,” Seymour said Wednesday, noting human rights abuses in the Philippines. “How could this happen to a Canadian citizen? I am totally sick to my stomach over this.”

He suggested Riach might be getting especially harsh treatment because of the extreme positions of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has encouraged the extrajudicial killings of thousands of suspected drug offenders.

Riach, 36, has a criminal history in Canada. He was convicted in 2010 of possession and careless storage of a loaded .45-calibre semiautomatic Glock pistol found under his mattress in is luxury Yaletown condo.

But he was acquitted of more serious gun charges after an arsenal of weapons was found in the apartment.

Riach was also in a vehicle with Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon and Hells Angel Larry Amero when it was sprayed by gunfire in Kelowna in August 2011. Bacon was killed and Amero was seriously injured. Two women in the car also sustained injuries.

Three men linked to the United Nations gang are currently on trial in Kelowna for the murder.

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The B.C. director of civil forfeiture wants criminal convictions against several Hells Angels admitted as evidence in an upcoming civil trial over the seizure of three biker clubhouses.

Lawyer Brent Olthuis, representing the government agency, argued in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that admitting the biker convictions and related court rulings would be appropriate in the civil case.

Olthuis told Justice Barry Davies that the convictions are relevant to show the reputation of the Hells Angels, who he referred to as the HAMC.

“We are wanting to introduce these convictions … against the HAMC members primarily in aid of the allegations … as to the main purposes and activities of the HAMC and the members of that club and their awareness of the club’s public reputation,” Olthuis said. “These convictions are clearly probative.”

He also said that several of the Hells Angels defendants refused to answer questions about the convictions during pre-trial discovery sessions.

The long-running civil forfeiture case began in 2007 when the government seized the Hells Angels’ Nanaimo clubhouse, alleging that he had been used for criminal purposes.

The director of civil forfeiture later made the same allegations in lawsuits he filed to seize biker clubhouses for the East End Vancouver and Kelowna chapters.

And the Hells Angels filed a countersuit in 2012, seeking to get B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act declared unconstitutional.

The trial has been delayed several times, but is now set to begin next month at the Vancouver Law Courts.

The government’s amended claim alleges that if the Hells Angels get to keep the clubhouses they will be used in the future “to enhance the ability of a criminal organization, namely the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, to commit indictable offences.”

Olthuis said it was a more efficient use of the court’s time to enter all the criminal convictions and related rulings into evidence rather than have to call evidence about the individual prosecutions.

He listed the cases he wants admitted:

• the 2007 conviction of former Hells Angels hang-around Jonathan Sal Bryce for trafficking inside the East End clubhouse. Bryce is the son of chapter president John Bryce, and was arrested during the E-Pandora undercover investigation targeting the biker gang;
• Eight different convictions against Nomads Hells Angel Ronaldo Lising, a former East End chapter member;
• Three convictions against East End Hells Angels Jean Violette;
• Six convictions against former East End member John Punko;
• Manslaughter convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels Rob Thomas and Norman Cocks;
• A conviction against former Hells Angel enforcer Jules Stanton, who was murdered in 2010;
• A series of convictions against former Hells Angel Randy Potts;
• Two convictions against Kelowna Hells Angel Joseph Skreptak;
• And convictions against former Nanaimo chapter members Robert “Fred” Widdifield and Rajinder Sandhu in an extortion case;
• Convictions against Kelowna Hells Angels David Giles and Bryan Oldham in a drug conspiracy case. Giles died last year while serving his sentence.

Lawyer Greg DelBigio, representing some of the Hells Angels defendants, argued that it would be inappropriate to have the convictions and judgments admitted.

He said the earlier cases “are irrelevant to the proceedings and they are beyond the scope of questioning at discovery.”

DelBigio said that because the government is arguing that the clubhouses will be used in the future for criminal activity, it is impossible to speculate about who it believes would be committing the offences.

“My friends don’t say that a particular person at a particular point in time in the future is likely to do a particular crime,” he said. “It is that somebody at some unspecific point of time is going to do something.”

He said that some of the convictions reference are “very, very old” and that have to bearing on the government’s allegations in the current case.

Pre-trial applications are set for two more days this week before the civil forfeiture trial begins April 23.

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The owner of a Vancouver company that sells encrypted BlackBerrys popular with B.C. gangsters is facing charges in the U.S. of racketeering, conspiracy and drug trafficking.

Vincent Ramos, who started Phantom Secure in 2008, is even alleged in U.S. court documents to have sold his specialized devices to “some members of the (Mexican) Sinaloa (drug) cartel.”

Ramos, 41, was arrested in the U.S. on Wednesday, as police in Metro Vancouver raided his business and home.

U.S. court documents obtained by Postmedia allege he set up his company a decade ago specifically to help international drug trafficking organizations evade police and now has more than 20,000 of his encrypted devices circulating around the world.

“According to law enforcement sources in Australia, Canada and the United States, Phantom Secure devices are used by the upper echelon of various transnational criminal organizations to communicate with their criminal compatriots and conduct the illegal activities of the organization,” FBI special agent Nicholas Cheviron says in the court documents.

“These law enforcement sources all report that they are unaware of any law enforcement partner that has identified even a single legitimate Phantom Secure user.”

The documents said: “Phantom Secure’s devices and service were specifically designed to prevent law enforcement from intercepting and monitoring communication on the network, and every facet of Phantom Secure’s corporate structure was set up specifically to facilitate criminal activity and to impede, obstruct and evade law enforcement.”

B.C. corporate documents list Ramos as president and sole director of Phantom Secure.

The U.S. alleges Ramos, Phantom Secure and others whose names are blacked out engaged in “a pattern of racketeering activity involving gambling, money laundering and drug trafficking.”

And Ramos is also alleged to have “knowingly and intentionally conspired with other persons to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine.”

The investigation into the Vancouver company appears to date back to at least 2015 and has involved the RCMP, police in Australia, and the FBI.

That year, the RCMP had undercover officers pose as drug traffickers to purchase devices from Phantom Service, Cheviron said in his court affidavit.

“During the vetting process, an undercover agent asked the Phantom Secure representative if it is safe to send messages that explicitly discussed drug trafficking, using the following examples ‘cocaine coming up,’ ‘sending MDMA to Montreal,’” Cheviron said.

“Phantom Secure’s employee replied that speaking explicitly was ‘totally fine’ because the servers were ‘based in Panama’ and ‘no one has access to our servers.’”

The RCMP undercover officers later pretended an associate had been arrested and asked Phantom Secure to delete his BlackBerry remotely.

“So he picked up the load (of drugs) and I think he’s been arrested. There is a lot of f–kin’ sh-t on my BlackBerry,” the purported trafficker said.

The employee confirmed with the undercover officer: “You wanna wipe both of them?”

“Yes,” he replied, calling the worker a “lifesaver.”

Ramos has not faced any charges in B.C. 

Undercover officers also met Ramos in Las Vegas a year ago and “posed as high-ranking members of a transnational drug trafficking organization seeking secure communications and data deletion services to facilitate an expansion of their drug trafficking activities in South America and Europe.”

“Ramos explained that Phantom Secure  was built specifically for the purpose of facilitated drug trafficking,” the documents said.

When the officers said they might need the GPS function on the phones if they had to kill an associate believed to be cooperating with police, Ramos responded: “Right, right, right, right.”

Phantom Secure boasts in its advertising that “the advantages of having our server and a portion of our business located in Panama” is that “Panama does not cooperate with any other countries’ inquiries.”

“Panama does not consider tax evasion a crime and as such does not help other countries in their investigations.”

The U.S. documents also said “to further conceal the location of its key and mail servers, Phantom Secure cloaks them in multiple layers of virtual proxy networks.”

Phantom Secure doesn’t allow just anyone to become a client. New customers have to get a “vouch” from an existing client, the documents say.

“I believe the purpose of the vouch requirement is to prevent law enforcement from penetrating Phantom Secure’s network,” Cheviron said.

The Vancouver company charges between $2,000 and $3,000 US for a six-month subscription.

“Phantom Secure guarantees that messages stored on its devices can be and will be remotely deleted by Phantom Secure if the device is seized by law enforcement or otherwise compromised.”

The documents indicate American authorities have several cooperating witnesses or “CWs” in the case against Ramos.

The first, CW-1, was arrested in September 2015 as he coordinated a shipment of more than 135 kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to Canada.

He told police his criminal organization worked with the Sinaloa cartel to get cocaine for Canada.

“CW-1 stated that over the course of several years, his drug trafficking organization moved hundreds of kilos of cocaine per month from Mexico through to the United States, ultimately destined for Canada and Australia. CW-1 used a Phantom Secure device to facilitate each of these transactions,” the documents said.

After his arrest, Phantom Secure tried to wipe his BlackBerry, but failed.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Annie Linteau refused to comment on the RCMP’s role in the investigation, except to confirm officers had been involved in executing search warrants in Metro Vancouver.

“All I can say at this point is that the RCMP is working as an assist to another police department. The B.C. warrants are currently sealed so we don’t have any information to share with you at this time,” she said.

Ramos appeared in Federal Court in Seattle on Thursday and was ordered detained pending his transfer to San Diego, where he will stand trial.

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A Vancouver businessman alleged to have sold encrypted BlackBerry’s to international drug-trafficking organizations laundered “tens of millions” of dollars of his illicit profits, U.S. law enforcement says in court documents.

Vincent Ramos, who owns Phantom Security Communications, was arrested in Washington state last Wednesday and is facing racketeering, drug-trafficking, conspiracy and money-laundering charges in San Diego.

The U.S. alleges he sold 20,000 of his specialized devices, as well as access to his encrypted communication network, to organized crime groups around the world, including the deadly Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

And Ramos used shell companies and crypto currencies to launder that money, documents obtained by Postmedia News say.

“Based on reports of the RCMP, Australia and the U.S. financial investigators and agents that I have reviewed, bank records, corporate ownership filings in Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong show that Phantom Secure generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue by facilitating the crimes of transnational criminal organizations and protecting these organizations from detection by law enforcement,” FBI special agent Nicholas Cheviron says in an affidavit filed in court.

“I know that to launder its ill-gotten gains and maintain its members’ anonymity, the Phantom Secure enterprise uses crypto currencies, including Bitcoin, and shell companies.”

Ramos appears to own only one property in B.C. — a New Westminster condo assessed this year at $424,000.

The U.S. documents don’t name the shell companies or state in which country they have been set up.

Meanwhile, in B.C., where Ramos started his company in 2008, he owes the government almost $150,000 in unpaid sales tax.

Last November, the B.C. director of provincial sales tax obtained a court order to seize and sell the assets of Phantom Secure because of the unpaid $147,298.23 in tax. The court order lists Phantom Secure’s offices as being in Vancouver in the 200-block West 7th Avenue.

But Postmedia visited the multi-unit building Friday and found no reference to the controversial encryption company. A different Richmond address is listed on Phantom Secure’s most-recent B.C. corporate records. But the unit is a UPS Store and not a storefront for Ramos’s company.

Sources told Postmedia that Phantom Secure didn’t operate a public storefront in Metro Vancouver. But the company did have branches of its business in Los Angeles, Dubai, Mexico and Australia.

Phantom Secure’s closed-communications system shut down about noon Friday, according to some system-users.

The company issued a news release from Dubai in August 2015 announcing a new “online store.”

“Today, after months of anticipation, the encrypted telecom company giant Phantom Secure launches their new online store at phantomencrypt.com,” the release says. “A veteran in the secure-communications industry, Phantom Secure has been delivering military-grade encrypted Blackberry devices to their clients for over a decade and are now finally about to offer an ecommerce payment solution to customers worldwide.”

The link to the store appears to have now been disabled.

The news release claims the company started in Vancouver in 2004, even though the corporate records indicate an incorporation date of Jan. 2, 2008.

Australia has been Phantom Secure’s biggest and most controversial market. The U.S. court documents state that half of the 20,000 devices sold by the Vancouver company are in the hands of organized criminals Down Under.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported in 2014 that one biker gang was using Phantom Secure devices to arrange successful hits on two Hells Angels. Police complained at the time that the murder investigations were stymied by their inability to crack the devices to obtain evidence in the cases.

The problem of organized crime using various encryption companies to evade police has been an ongoing issue in B.C. and other jurisdictions, according to the Combined Forces Specialized Enforcement Unit.

“Organized-crime groups have been using encrypted devices for some time now in an attempt to thwart detection by police of any criminal activity, enforcement unit Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said. “This may complicate police investigations, however, police continue to diligently and tenaciously target organized crime leading to successful prosecutions of the individuals who pose the greatest risk to public safety.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

When undercover FBI agents seized an encrypted BlackBerry from Vancouver company Phantom Secure last June, they decided to message one of the contacts on the device.

The mysterious figure — “a known drug trafficker located in Canada” — was identified only as The Goat.

Agents learned details of a clandestine drug shipment planned from B.C. to Washington State, according to U.S. court documents laying out charges against Phantom Secure’s Vancouver-based owner Vincent Ramos.

“This operation ultimately led to the arrest of Saysana Luangkhamdeng as he attempted to smuggle MDMA into the United States,” the documents said.

Ramos, 40, was arrested last week on charges of racketeering and drug trafficking for allegedly aiding international organized crime groups, including the deadly Mexican Sinaloa cartel. He is expected to go to trial in San Diego.

Records from Luangkhamdeng’s Seattle prosecution lay out more details of what happened when he crossed the border into Blaine on June 10, 2017, about 11:30 a.m. 

The Langley man, who is 41, was driving a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe and wearing a Blue Jays jersey. He told a border guard that he and his passenger, another Canadian identified only as C.M. in the documents, were off to watch the Mariners play the Jays that afternoon at Safeco Field.

“According to the primary inspection officer, Luangkhamdeng appeared nervous and evasive during primary questioning,” U.S. Homeland Security Special Agent Nathan Hickman said in the original criminal complaint.

He said that Luangkhamdeng’s vehicle was similar to others that border guards had “found to have a secret compartment near the rear cargo area, so he was sent for secondary inspection.”

During that search, Luangkhamdeng “had his head bowed and his hands around his head.” He appeared “significantly stressed.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found a secret compartment — commonly called a “trap” — near the rear cargo area.

“I know that these secret compartments are used regularly by drug trafficking organizations to smuggle illicit narcotics … into and out of the United States. The compartments are often wired with an electronic locking mechanism, and a complex sequence of buttons must usually be pushed in order to open the compartment,” Hickman said.

“Though quality can vary, these compartments are often sophisticated and (traffickers) pay the manufacturers of these compartments as much as $50,000 to build and install them. It is not unusual for such aftermarket compartments to have the capacity to secret 30 or more kilograms of illicit narcotics.”

In the Santa Fe, agents found a key with an aftermarket fob on it and tried to use it to open the compartment. It didn’t work.

So one of the officers “drilled a small hole in the underside of the vehicle to determine if there was anything secreted inside the compartment,” Hickman said.

“After drilling into the interior of the compartment, a white powdery substance could be seen on the end of the drill bit as it was removed from the compartment.”

The powder was field tested and determined to be MDMA, or “moon rock.”

The agents removed the compartment and found a total of 24.2 kilograms of MDMA, estimated to be worth about $360,000 US.

Hickman said the powder can be purchased in Canada for about $9,000 per kilogram, then sold south of the border for as much as $15,000 US. The transporters get paid about $1,000 to $2,000 per kilogram for their work.

“I also know that MDMA smuggled from Canada is often traded for cocaine, which is then smuggled back into Canada,” the special agent said. “Typically, the trade is two kilograms of MDMA for one kilogram of cocaine.”

While Luangkhamdeng initially asked the agents who arrested him for a lawyer, after three months in U.S. detention, he pleaded guilty last October to smuggling.

He is to be sentenced on May 4 and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1-million fine.

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Twitter.com/kbolan

The founder of a Vancouver encryption company alleged to have supplied untraceable BlackBerry devices to criminals around the world has been denied bail in southern California.

Vincent Ramos had argued at a detention hearing in San Diego last week that he was not a flight risk despite facing racketeering and trafficking charges that could land him in jail for life if convicted.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Barbara Lynn Major denied Ramos’ application to be released on a $500,000 US bond pending his trial.

Ramos founded Phantom Secure Communications in Vancouver in 2008. The company has since branched out to the U.S., Australia, Dubai, Panama, Hong Kong and Thailand. 

The U.S. government alleges Ramos and his company “knowingly and intentionally conspired with criminal organizations by providing them with the technological tools to evade law enforcement and obstruct justice.”

When Ramos was arrested last month, U.S. authorities said the charges were the first of their kind against a company and its principals for aiding international crime groups through technology.

U.S. court records allege Phantom sold up to 20,000 BlackBerry and other devices to crime groups, including the notorious Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.

But family and friends of Ramos paint a very different picture of the 40 year old in reference letters filed in support of his bail application.

They describe him as a doting father of four, a hard-working businessman, and flag football coach.

His sister-in-law Shellaine Vicera said: “Vince, as we call him, is one of the most generous, helpful, kind-spirited individuals I have ever met in my life.”

“I am so lucky to have a brother-in-law who is understanding and is always willing to give a helping hand. He is truly a family man, is loving, caring and is always supportive of his family and children in anything they wish to do,” she said.

His Vancouver accountant Ash Katey said he had done the taxes for Ramos and Phantom Secure for 10 years.

“I found him to be an earnest, well-mannered young businessman, prepared to work hard to make his business grow and willing to learn new things involved in the growth of his business,” Katey said. “He did not want to take any shortcuts to gain any extra advantage out of a tax situation.”

Patricia Mendoza said in her letter of support that “the nature of the offences is very surprising and shocking as I have always known Victor to be intelligent, personable, hard-working.”

Ramos’ lawyer Michael Pancer said in court documents filed for the bail hearing that Ramos’ wife was willing to put their Richmond house up as collateral for a $500,000 US bond to secure his release.

And Pancer said Ramos was prepared to lease an apartment in San Diego and wear a GPS monitor.

“It is important to note that Mr. Ramos has no prior criminal record. He finds himself in trouble with the law for the very first time. Those who know Mr. Ramos best have expressed shock at hearing of his arrest,” Pancer said.

“While Mr. Ramos would concede the nature of the allegations are serious, as in any federal offence, Mr. Ramos is not charged with any crimes of violence, any crimes involving weapons, or any crimes involving threats of injuries.”

He said Ramos is “an educated man with familial and employment stability and a history of respect for the law.”

Ramos was born in Winnipeg in 1977 and moved with his family to Richmond at age four. He attended Kwantlen for two years and studied business before embarking on a career selling Amway products, Pancer said. He then worked for Rogers Cellular before deciding to go into business for himself.

“In 2008, he purchased his own servers and hired a tech person to install them. Mr. Ramos purchased licenses that were commercially available and already in use in the industry. He created no encryption programs, but used only those already on the market,” Pancer said. “We understand the security devices were like ones being used by our own government on BlackBerrys they purchase.”

Ramos has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He will be back in court May 7 to set a date for his trial.

Kbolan@postmedia.com

Blog: vancouversun.com/tag/real-scoop

Twitter.com/kbolan

A young Surrey man has been sentenced to two years in jail after being caught with a stash of fentanyl-laced pills that a judge said amounted to “over 1,000 potential death sentences.”

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nigel Kent said that Jasondeep Johal was more than a street-level dealer given the volume of the deadly drugs he possessed when arrested in 2015.

And he said that Johal, 26, needed a substantial jail sentence for his conviction last November on three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

“The principles of denunciation and deterrence of drug dealing in fentanyl demand a substantial jail sentence. Such incarceration would also acknowledge the harm done to the victims of the fentanyl crisis and to the community at large,” Kent said.

“The evidence in this case is sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Johal was trafficking illegal drugs at a distributor level and not just as a street-level retailer,” Kent said. “The fact that the pills were counterfeit Oxycodone meant that Mr. Johal had access to a drug‑trafficking network capable of producing large amounts of such product.”

Johal was in a Jeep Cherokee when he was stopped by Richmond RCMP about 1:15 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2015. Police smelled “vegetative marijuana” and searched the vehicle.

Inside they found “a plastic bag containing 1,090 green-coloured pills, and stamped on one side with `80’ and `CDN’ on the other.”

“Later testing of the pills confirmed that each contained heroin, fentanyl and a derivative of fentanyl, all of which are controlled substances,” Kent said.

The Crown in the case sought a sentence of five years, while Johal’s lawyer asked for a term of just nine months.

Kent noted that Johal was a “youthful first-time offender” without any prior criminal record.

“He has a wide circle of family and friends who are supportive of him and who will assist him with obtaining employment and staying on the right path in the future,” the judge said.

But he also said that Johal supporters who wrote reference letters didn’t explain how “a person of supposedly good character, became involved in the drug trade or why he was trafficking 1,090 pills containing fentanyl, a pernicious substance that has caused widespread death and misery in British Columbia for several years.”

Some of the letter writers have criminal records, Kent noted, and others “have been in the company of known gang associates or persons suspected in illegal drug transactions” according to police.

While Johal himself addressed the court, he “provided no explanation how he became involved in the drug trade, or what the extent of that involvement might have been,” Kent said.

“There is no evidence that he was himself a drug addict or that he was dealing drugs to support his own habit. While he purported to apologize, he did not actually admit to any criminal conduct let alone acknowledge the harm he may have caused to the community.”

He said that even though Johal claimed to be a changed man, “nothing in his demeanour, or tone and content of expression conveyed sincere remorse.”

Kent said that the normal sentencing range for a street-level fentanyl trafficker is now 18 months to three years in jail.

Kent also imposed a period of two years probation on Johal, as well as a DNA order and a 10-year firearms ban.

Read the ruling here:  

kbolan@postmedia.com

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