Hells Angel Chad Wilson got nervous when he noticed the ball cap of “a big burly dude” entering the convenience store where he was looking at souvenir fridge magnets.

The hat said “F — k the other team” and he knew right away that the man was from the rival Outlaw motorcycle gang.

The message on the hat was “directed towards us,” Wilson would later testify at his trial for attempted murder. “It’s about the Hells Angels.”

Wilson, who was found murdered in Maple Ridge on Sunday, and his biker buddy John Midmore were in South Dakota for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August 2006 when they decided to take a drive around the area in Wilson’s pickup.

They stopped at Legion Lake Resort in Custer State Park because Midmore was hungry.

Wilson later testified that when he saw the Outlaws there, “I nearly shit my pants.”

Postmedia News has obtained transcripts of Wilson’s 2008 testimony at the trial, after which a jury acquitted him and Midmore — both Canadians — of attempted murder.

But Wilson later pleaded guilty to being an alien in illegal possession of a firearm and was sentenced to four years in prison.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has said it is looking into Wilson’s past for a possible motive for his slaying.

Evidence from his U.S. trial lays out the deep hatred between the two biker gangs.

Wilson testified that after seeing the Outlaws, he wanted to get out of the store and leave the park as soon as possible.

He turned his head away from them as he walked past, hoping they wouldn’t notice his Hells Angels death head tattoo which was “plain as day, like a billboard for the Hells Angels.”

He hopped into the passenger side of his white Ford F350 and took a bite out of an ice cream sandwich Midmore had bought him before heading off to use the washroom.

“I was just sitting there waiting for John to come out of the restroom,” Wilson testified.

“Right out of the side of the trees, here comes Outlaws. And at the time, it looks like they are walking towards the front of the truck and I freaked out.

“The first thing I did was grabbed my gun and put it in my waistband.”

Midmore showed up and they tried to get out of the parking lot, but the road was busy and they had to wait for a break in the traffic.

Chad Wilson is transferred to court, Oct. 17, 2008, in Sioux Falls, S.D. He and John Midmore are Hells Angels bikers charged with a 2006 gunfight with rival Outlaws. Lawyers on Monday No. 3, 2008 have started questioning possible jurors in the trial of two men.

The rival Outlaws came up to them, he said. One of them who was later identified as Nathan Frasier was in front of the truck.

“As soon as the truck pulled ahead, he looked like a deer in the headlights and he reached and dropped the gun from his waistband. All I did was lift up my shirt so they could see the gun. And go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Wilson got out of the truck as he saw Frasier pick up his gun.

“All hell broke lose,” he testified. “There was a flash of light and then sound and I just bent down. I racked my gun and as I came up to start shooting, I was shooting back at him.”

He managed to get back in the truck where Midmore was ducking down and attempting to steer.

“So I grabbed the wheel, put my foot on top of his, hit the gas and off we went,” Wilson said. “That’s what really happened that day.”

He admitted to bringing both rifles and handguns to the biker party, storing some in a secret compartment in his truck so “I could get some guys together and we could go out shooting.”

After the shootout, Wilson’s truck was found abandoned on a logging road with a .40 calibre gun magazine, three .40 calibre semi-automatic pistols and ammunition inside.

Five people on the Outlaws side were wounded, including Danny Neace, who was paralyzed from the waist down.

Neace and several other Outlaws were later convicted of plotting to fight other Hells Angels in Michigan a few days before the Custer park shootout.

Wilson testified that when he saw the Outlaws that day, “I was terrified.”

“There were nine of them and two of us,” he said. “Like being in the Hells Angels, you are always aware of the Outlaw issue. It’s a huge issue in our club.”

The Outlaws advertise on their Canadian website that they’ve opened a “prospective chapter” in B.C. But police don’t consider that the HA rivals have any real membership or influence in this province.

In Alberta, however, the Outlaws now have two chapters and there have been skirmishes between the two gangs.

Neither the Outlaws nor the Hells Angels responded to emailed requests for comment.

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Former police agent Micheal Plante recalled in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday some of the conversations he had with Hells Angels about their conflicts and crimes more than 14 years ago.

Plante, in his second day of testimony on behalf of the director of civil forfeiture, listened intently as tapes of some of his intercepted conversations from 2004 were played for Justice Barry Davies. In one of the tapes, East End Hells Angel Ronaldo Lising complained to Plante about other members of the biker gang, including his fellow chapter mate, John Punko. Lising referenced Punko’s conviction for threatening a federal prosecutor in a Vancouver food court several years earlier.

The conversation happened in a drive to Kelowna in 2004 when Plante was working on behalf of the RCMP to infiltrate the East End Hells Angels.

Several Hells Angels and associates were later charged and convicted as a result of Plante’s work for the police on the E-Pandora investigation. Plante, who now lives under a new identity, was paid $1 million for his undercover work and for testifying at a series of criminal trials.

He told Davies Monday that he was being paid another $80,000 to testify in the civil proceedings between the Hells Angels and the government agency.

The B.C. Director of Civil Forfeiture is trying to get Hells Angels clubhouses in East Vancouver, Nanaimo and Kelowna forfeited to the government as the instruments of criminal activity. The Hells Angels have counter-sued the government, claiming the Civil Forfeiture Act is unconstitutional. The case has been ongoing since November 2007 when police first raided the Nanaimo clubhouse.

The recordings played Tuesday highlighted the infighting and petty disputes between some of the Hells Angels. In one reference, Lising complained about two other Hells Angels that he was in the drug trade with at the time. Plante explained the references to Davies.

“He was saying he was doing all the work … but he was still paying those guys half the money,” Plante testified.

Lising also appeared to threaten an unidentified group of people, saying, “those guys are not welcome in this f–king province.”

“If we see them, we are going to f–king take care of them,” he said in the recording.

Lising said he liked “being around Hells Angels” and attacked other full-patch members who didn’t want to socialize much within the group.

“Why do you want to be a Hells Angel if you are not going to hang out with Hells Angels?” he told Plante.

Two lawyers for the Hells Angels, Joe Arvay and Greg DelBigio, both objected to Plante’s attempts to interpret what Lising was referencing in the 14-year-old conversation.

“When he is listening to his own voice, he can say this is what I meant,” Arvay said. “But actually interpreting the tape, I don’t know if he has any greater expertise than any of us.”

Davies said that “the tape is the evidence, not the interpretation and not the transcript.”

“Unfortunately I have been doing this business of listening to these kinds of tapes for a long, long time,” Davies said of the grainy recordings. “I am just very glad that they aren’t playing heavy metal in the background for a change in the car because that’s the usual circumstance.”

Plante will be on the stand all week before returning for cross-examination in February.

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After several months living in a halfway house, convicted trafficker and long-time gangster Jarrod Bacon wanted to move into new digs with his girlfriend and “eventually start a family.”

But the Parole Board of Canada says he must stay where he is despite making some progress since his release from prison last summer.

Bacon, a Red Scorpion gangster with links to the Hells Angels, applied to have the condition removed that he remain in a Community Residential Facility.

But board member Michel Lalonde said in a ruling Tuesday that he should stay in the halfway house for another six months at least.

Bacon was sentenced to 12 years in 2012 for conspiracy to traffic 100 kilograms of cocaine after getting caught in a police sting. The B.C. Court of Appeal later increased his sentence to 14 years,

When Bacon got statutory release in June after serving two-thirds of his sentence, he spent time with loved ones, then volunteered at an undisclosed “resource” in the community, Lalonde’s ruling said.

“You finally involved yourself in doing full-time supervised volunteering,” Lalonde said. “You explained that you wanted to give back to the community and avoid negative influences. This appears to have been a positive experience both for you and the resource, according to you. It allowed you to work on your attitude and humble yourself and the resource only has good words for the help you provided.”

He stopped volunteering to take courses in September. Then in October, Bacon delayed going for a urine test until the very last minute, Lalonde said.

He then claimed he had been a victim of a hit and run and gotten morphine at the hospital just an hour before the deadline for the urine test.

“The following day you met with your caseworker and appeared agitated,” Lalonde said, adding that Bacon’s urine test came back negative.

“You insisted you had nothing to hide and did not use drugs.”

He said Bacon is doing well in his courses and “appears motived to earn your diploma with excellent results.”

But Lalonde also said that given Bacon’s entrenched criminality, he was still a risk to reoffend and endanger the community before the end of his full sentence.

“The board prolongs the residency requirement for a period of six months as it is satisfied that in the absence of such a condition you would present an undue risk to society by committing before the expiration of your sentence according to law” an offence…relating to activities of a criminal organization,” Lalonde’s ruling said.

“To come to this conclusion, the board has taken full account of your potential for violence, including various offences such as possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon, violent behaviours while incarcerated, breach of conditions and a return to old behaviours upon release in the community.”

The ruling blanks out the province in which Bacon is living, but Lalonde is based in Quebec.

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When convicted killer Robbie Soomel lost his brother in a 2009 gangland hit, it had a profound impact on his life inside a federal prison, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Brent Anderson told a B.C. Supreme Court judge that the fatal shooting of Raj Soomel in a case of mistaken identity “was the catalyst for Mr. Soomel to change his ways.”

“It has perhaps provided him with a unique perspective on the harm he caused through his offending because he now is himself a victim of a family member having been murdered,” Anderson told Justice George Macintosh.

Anderson asked Macintosh to send Robbie Soomel’s case to a faint-hope hearing, where a jury would decide if he should get parole before serving 25 years of his life sentence.

Soomel was convicted of the first-degree murder of friend-turned-drug trade rival Gurpreet Sohi, who was shot to death in a Delta basement suite in September 2000. And Soomel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for assisting with the contracted killing of Jason Herle in Abbotsford in 1997. Soomel was just 18 at the time.

At his murder trial, he was also identified as a suspect in the still-unsolved 1998 assassination of journalist Tara Singh Hayer, who had agreed to testify for the Crown in the Air India terrorism case.

Anderson said that despite Soomel’s violent history and the disciplinary problems that plagued his early years of incarceration, he has been a model prisoner since 2010, taking courses, qualifying for escorted trips into the community and being “very active” in William Head Institution’s annual theatre production.

“He has really demonstrated that change where he is now a fundamentally different person than where he was when he was 18 and 20 years old,” Anderson said.

He argued that the purpose of a faint-hope hearing is “to determine what has been the change in the applicant’s circumstance that might justify imposing a lesser penalty.”

Soomel, now 39, meets the criteria for a hearing, Anderson said.

MacIntosh noted that his role in deciding whether to send Soomel’s case forward “is to guess what that jury is going to do.” A jury in a faint-hope case must rule unanimously to reduce a killer’s parole ineligibility period.

Crown Dan Mulligan said Soomel does not meet the criteria because of the nature of his offences, as well as his conduct inside federal prisons where he amassed dozens of institutional charges and convictions.

“It says something about Mr. Soomel’s character that he was involved in two homicides, both of which were fairly intricately planned,” Mulligan said.

“In the Crown’s submission, there are very few indications in the Corrections documents that Mr. Soomel has expressed heartfelt or genuine remorse for the murders.”

He said Soomel tends to minimize his role in his violent crimes, suggesting he was influenced by others in the gang and drug world in which he was immersed as a youth.

In fact, Soomel ran his own drug business and had five or six employees at the time he targeted Sohi because he suspected his childhood friend of a drug rip-off and an earlier shooting.

“Mr. Soomel continues to minimize his own culpability. The fact is he was the ringleader who orchestrated the murder of Mr. Sohi and used his influence over others to conscript them into the conspiracy,” Mulligan said.

Soomel watched Wednesday’s proceedings via video-monitor, looking very different from the baby-faced accused at his trial 15 years ago.

Robbie Soomel in high school yearbook photo

Mulligan also explained how Soomel’s brother was shot near a Vancouver halfway house where he had been living after pleading guilty to attempted murder of a man who testified against his younger brother.

RCMP investigators probing the Hayer murder targeted Raj Soomel in an undercover “Mr. Big” sting where the officers posed as member of a criminal organization to try to get the elder Soomel to provide information about Hayer’s murder. He didn’t. But he did try to hire one of the cops to murder a witness who testified against Robbie Soomel at his trial.

Two men linked to the United Nations gang were convicted in 2016 of murdering Raj Soomel after mistaking him for Independent Soldiers gangster Randy Naicker, who was living at the same halfway house. Naicker was shot to death in 2012.

Robbie Soomel’s hearing is expected to end Thursday, with Macintosh reserving his decision.

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Days after charges were stayed in the province’s largest-ever money laundering case, a lawyer for the former accused was in B.C. Supreme Court trying to get millions of dollars seized by police returned to the pair.

The hearing was held Nov. 27 before Justice Heather Holmes. Postmedia did not attend the proceeding, but listened to a recording of the 42-minute session at the Vancouver Law Courts on Friday.

Lawyer Matthew Nathanson filed an application on Nov. 26 for the return of more than $2 million seized during an RCMP investigation, dubbed E-Pirate. The cash was found in the home of Caixuan Qin and Jain Jun Zhu, as well as at the Richmond offices of Silver International Investments, of which Qin is director.

Until Nov. 22, Qin, Zhu and Silver International had been charged with laundering the proceeds of crime, possession of property obtained by crime, and failing to ascertain the identity of a client.

Police alleged the company had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars and was linked to drug money.

No details of why the charges were stayed were disclosed at Tuesday’s hearing.

Nathanson told Holmes that his clients’ Charter rights were violated by police when they conducted the searches and that their money, as well as the contents of two safety deposit boxes, should be returned immediately.

Federal prosecutor Gerry Sair argued that normally items seized during investigations are returned within 30 days after a case has concluded under a provision of the criminal code.

He also said he wasn’t in a position to respond to Nathanson’s Charter application because he only received notice of it the previous day.

Sair said that the 30-day period is in effect because it takes time to process the money seized and arrange for it to be returned.

“There are property management orders in place and it takes a little bit of time to go through the motion of actually releasing it and returning the funds to the applicants or their accounts,” he said.

Sair also said the B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is reviewing its file in the E-Pirate case.

“In my view, that is irrelevant to this matter. But it’s possible within a 30-day period of time, they may make an application to somehow restrain the money,” Sair said.

Earlier this year, almost $1 million was forfeited to the director of civil forfeiture that was seized in August 2015 from two men who police earlier saw entering Silver International’s office with suitcases. Silver said in court filings that it had no interest in that cash.

Sair also said holding onto property for “a few days” after charges are stayed would not constitute a breach of someone’s Charter rights.

Nathanson said it would be unfair to his clients if their money was not immediately returned and then became the subject of a civil forfeiture application, tying it up even longer.

“The position of the applicants is as of right now, further retention is unlawful,” he told Holmes.

Sair noted that some of the items seized were illegal and should not be returned.

“They include rifle cartridges, a credit card skimmer … and white powder,” he said.

Holmes agreed to issue an order for the return of the cash and safety deposit box items within the 30-day limit, but also agreed to hear Nathanson’s Charter application for an even faster return of the items when the case returns to court on Dec. 12.

Holmes also said that if a civil forfeiture challenge is brought, Nathanson could still argue his position “that the original seizure was unlawful.”

Nathanson said that while he believes the initial seizure was illegal, “my position at this moment is regardless of that issue, the continued detention now is unlawful.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Nathanson declined to comment on the current application before the courts, or the stay.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada would only confirm that the charges were stayed, but would not say why.

B.C. Attorney General David Eby expressed concern about the stay and said he would ask for more information from the RCMP and the federal Crown about what went wrong with the years-long investigation.

Postmedia earlier obtained RCMP and B.C. government documents that alleged organized criminals used Silver as an illegal bank to wash drug money through Metro Vancouver casinos.

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The retired head of the Ontario Provincial Police Biker Enforcement Unit testified in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that Hells Angels paraphernalia and “knick knacks” on display at clubhouses are there to intimidate those who visit.

Len Isnor, who retired last year, prepared a report on the biker gang for the B.C. Director of Civil Forfeiture to be used in his efforts to get clubhouses in Nanaimo, East Vancouver and Kelowna forfeited to the provincial government as alleged instruments of criminal activity.

But first, the director must get Justice Barry Davies to determine whether Isnor will be qualified as an expert at the long-running civil forfeiture trial.

A lawyer for the Hells Angels challenged Isnor in cross-examination Tuesday about parts of his report.

“You refer to memorabilia and knick knacks are for intimidation. Just looking at the pictures, which knick knacks are for intimidation in those photos?” lawyer Joe Arvay asked Isnor.

Isnor pointed to a photo and said, “A Hells Angel with the death head on his head on top of a dragon.”

“So someone going into the clubhouse and seeing that is going to be intimidated, is that your point?” Arvay asked.

Isnor replied: “Yes, sir.”

Isnor also said in the report that he believed some children’s books and toys had been placed on an end table inside the Kelowna clubhouse before his court-ordered inspection in order to make it seem family friendly.

“This is the first time I have ever seen or heard of an area set up in a clubhouse for children. In my opinion, this was set up because of my inspection of the clubhouse,” Isnor’s report said.

Arvay asked Isnor if it was also possible that the toys were inside the clubhouse because “one or more of the members of the Kelowna clubhouse have children and that they may go to the clubhouse at times.”

Isnor testified that in 23 years of investigating the Hells Angels and other outlaw motorcycle gangs, he had never seen children in a clubhouse.

Arvay asked Isnor if he knew that Kelowna Hells Angels president Damiano Dipopolo “has eight children, and he might want to have some toys in the clubhouse when he is there with his children?”

Isnor pointed out that Dipopolo lives in Metro Vancouver.

“This clubhouse is in Kelowna, so I doubt that Mr. Dipopolo is bringing his children to this clubhouse. And the area in which these toys are set up is with the adult type entertainment in there. It just doesn’t mix,” Isnor said. “It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

Arvay suggested that if the Kelowna clubhouse had a children’s play area, that would “distinguish” it from other Hells Angels clubhouses.

“Would you be prepared to concede that if in fact children were allowed into the Kelowna clubhouse and that’s the reason why there are some children’s books and toys, then that would demonstrate to you that you can’t paint with the same broad brush all the clubhouses in the world, right?” he asked.

Isnor said he would “hate to hear” of children being in a clubhouse “knowing how dangerous they are.”

The Kelowna Hells Angels’ clubhouse.

His report also described bullet-proof windows at the East End clubhouse in Vancouver, and said the Kelowna clubhouse had similar-looking windows. He wrote that he thought the Kelowna bikers had emptied out most of the alcohol from the fridge prior to his inspection.

The report also said that most Hells Angels “are no longer passionate about motorcycles, but rather they hide behind the guise that they are an organization of motorcycle clubs.

“Though it is mandatory for all HA members to have a motorcycle, the passion for the motorcycle is secondary to the reputation and criminality of the organization,” Isnor wrote.

The trial continues.

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Dean Purdy of the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union said in a memo to his members that a government review has already determined that “no discipline is required” in the death of Alex Joseph.

Joseph, 36, died of a suspected drug overdose Oct. 4 as he and other inmates were being driven from Prince George to Maple Ridge in the back of a B.C. Corrections vehicle.

Others in the van told Postmedia that they tried for more than an hour to get the correctional officers to stop and help Joseph by shouting and pounding on the walls. The van finally pulled over north of 100 Mile House, but by then Joseph was dead.

Postmedia reached out to Purdy for comment at the time of the original stories last month, but he didn’t respond.

He said in his memo, obtained by Postmedia, that he understands that his members are frustrated “at the tone and content of the media coverage of this event.”

“I understand and share your frustration,” Purdy said. “It’s difficult to see our profession getting publicly criticized.”

He also said he supports the two members involved and offered his “commitment to making sure they have access to all the resources and supports they need to deal with the psychological, emotional and professional aftermath of the incident.”

“I can tell you that, at this point, the employer’s initial review has revealed that both (correctional officers) involved followed policy and protocol and as such, no discipline is required. This is good news and I will keep you posted if any other relevant findings emerge,” Purdy said.

B.C. Corrections said in a statement Wednesday that its investigation has not been completed and no final determinations have yet been made.

“B.C. Corrections is treating this incident very seriously and conducting a critical incident review,” spokeswoman Cindy Rose said in the statement. “However, that process is not yet complete. As such, it would be premature to speculate on whether or not policy and procedures were followed, or whether any discipline may or may not be appropriate.”

She said that when “the review is complete, B.C. Corrections will be able to confirm more details, but will not comment on personnel matters.”

Rose confirmed Corrections “proactively shares information with its BCGEU component chair on important matters related to staff safety and specific incidents.”

“That said, with a critical incident review in progress and not finalized, we would not have been in the position to provide the chair with a definitive conclusion,” she said.

The B.C. Coroners Service is also conducting an investigation into Joseph’s death, as is the RCMP.

Coroners Service media official Andy Watson said Wednesday that their investigation is ongoing and no decision has yet been made about whether to hold an inquest in Joseph’s death.

The RCMP’s North District major crime section has not yet completed its investigation, said Dawn Roberts, director of B.C. communications for the RCMP.

A judge has denied killer Robbie Soomel a chance at early parole, saying that a jury is not likely to vote unanimously in Soomel’s favour if he ordered a faint-hope hearing.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice George Macintosh agreed with Soomel’s lawyer Brent Anderson that his client has made strides toward rehabilitation over the last six years in jail.

But Macintosh also said Soomel was involved in two brutal murders in 1997 and 2000 and had poor prison behaviour for the first 12 years of his life sentence.

Soomel was convicted of the first-degree murder of friend-turned-drug trade rival Gurpreet Sohi, who was shot to death in a Delta basement suite in September 2000. And Soomel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for assisting with the contracted killing of Jason Herle in Abbotsford in 1997. Soomel was just 18 at the time.

Robbie Soomel in high school yearbook photo

At his murder trial, he was also identified as a suspect in the still-unsolved 1998 assassination of journalist Tara Singh Hayer, who had agreed to testify for the Crown in the Air India terrorism case.

The faint-hope clause allows murderers who killed before December 2011 to apply for a chance at early parole after serving 15 years of their sentence. The clause has been eliminated for those who killed after the 2011 cut-off date.

In a two-step process, a judge only orders a faint-hope hearing before a jury if he or she believes that jury would rule unanimously to reduce the parole ineligibility period.

“I do not find on the balance of probabilities that there is a substantial likelihood that a 12-member jury would find unanimously that Mr. Soomel’s parole ineligibility should be reduced,” Macintosh said Thursday. “I view Mr. Soomel’s prospect at this stage as being more of a long shot than what could be termed a reasonable prospect.”

He said if a jury was empanelled to hear Soomel’s faint-hope application, he doubted it “could get past the fact that Mr. Soomel killed two times — once in the first-degree murder he orchestrated and the other in the conspiracy to gun down a man in front of his girlfriend.”

Soomel watched the proceedings Thursday via video link from William Head prison near Victoria, where he was moved in 2014 after getting classified as a minimum-security inmate. He looked solemn when Macintosh read out his conclusion.

Crown Dan Mulligan argued that Soomel has continued to minimize his role as the leader of the Sohi murder plot and not shown any deep remorse.

He also pointed to dozens of institutional charges and convictions Soomel racked up in prison for offences like possession of a knife and various illicit substances.

Anderson said in his submissions that Soomel has qualified for escorted trips into the community to attend a Sikh temple, has taken many courses in jail, and participates in the annual Williams Head drama production. Soomel meets all the criteria for a faint-hope hearing, he said.

Macintosh said “Soomel’s marked improvement in the last six years is commendable, but it is not enough in my view. The application is dismissed.”

Tara Singh Hayer

RCMP Cpl. Carla Rivard, who worked on the Hayer murder investigation dubbed Project Expedio, was in court for Soomel’s faint-hope application.

She said afterwards that “it’s the position of the RCMP that Mr. Soomel serve his sentence to its fullest measure.”

“Out of respect for Mr. Sohi and Mr. Herle and their families, we will always be here adamantly opposing any consideration of Mr. Soomel’s early parole,” Rivard said.

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For the third time this year, a Metro Vancouver gangster has been shot to death in Mexico.

Jodh Singh Manj, 31, was gunned down after leaving a gym in a commercial complex in the Mexico City neighbourhood of Santa Fe.

He was getting into a vehicle in the building’s parking lot when gunmen opened fire about 1:30 p.m. local time Wednesday.

Manj, who grew up on Vancouver’s south slope, is a member of the United Nations gang and had been spending long periods of time in Mexico for years.

Police sources say he maintained links with Mexican cartels to broker bulk cocaine shipments to Canada that would then be sold by the gang.

He was also a suspect in the 2012 murder in Port Moody of Independent Soldier gangster Randy Naicker, although Manj was never charged. Two others linked to the UN earlier pleaded guilty to having roles in the Naicker murder conspiracy.

Police also say Manj’s violent demise in Mexico is likely an indication that B.C.’s bloody gang war between the UN and the Wolf Pack gang coalition has spilled over into that country.

The Wolf Pack was formed in 2010 by some Hells Angels, some Independent Soldiers members and some Red Scorpion gangsters.

On Aug. 24, Wolf Pack associate and former Metro Vancouver resident Nabil Alkhalil was shot to death in a luxury car dealership in a wealthy suburb of Mexico City. His brother Robby remains in pretrial custody in B.C. charged with the 2012 murder of high-profile gangster Sandip Duhre in Vancouver’s Wall Centre.

And a week earlier, on Aug. 17, West Vancouver’s Guiseppe Bugge, who police describe as a Hells Angels associate, was fatally shot in a posh shopping centre in Guadalajara.

Manj’s murder could have been in retaliation for those of Alkhalil and Bugge, both described as “targets of the UN,” Postmedia sources said Thursday.

One high-profile Hells Angel was posting gleeful comments on his Instagram Wednesday believed to be referencing Manj’s murder.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Manj’s death shows that those caught in the violent gang lifestyle can’t escape it by fleeing Canada.

“There have been multiple murders of gang members, many of them high-profile, in Mexico over the years and recently,” Winpenny said Thursday. “Gang members who think they can hide out in foreign countries are naive to think they will be able to escape the ramifications of their negative decisions and actions — whether that’s from the police or from those who want them dead.”

VPD Supt. Mike Porteous said police have been aware of Jodh Manj for more than a decade.

He said he was “always in conflicts with other gang figures, involved in violence across Greater Vancouver, the south slope, drugs, most of the gamut of any kind of gang related crime.”

Richard Walker, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, said the department “is aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Mexico. We offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the Canadian citizen.”

“Consular services are being provided to the family. Canadian consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information,” he said.

Until last year, Manj was facing charges of conspiracy to import and distribute methamphetamine, ecstasy and pseudoephedrine in Oregon, California, Washington and Canada.

The U.S. attorney in Portland alleged Manj had conspired with several others to smuggle ecstasy and pseudoephedrine from Canada into the U.S., then transport methamphetamine north to the Pacific Northwest and into B.C. from 2008 to 2010.

In 2009, Manj was intercepted by U.S. agents talking on the phone to the head of a drug trafficking organization about selling him 15,000 ecstasy pills.  

According to U.S. court documents, the charges against Manj were dismissed in February 2017 because the “defendant has not been apprehended, his whereabouts are unknown, and it would be difficult to locate the witnesses and exhibits necessary for successful prosecution of this case.”

Manj had convictions in B.C. for uttering threats and violating court-ordered conditions.

He was one of several gangsters stopped by police in Vancouver’s Kensington Park in October 2010 after the funeral for slain gangster Gurmit Dhak — considered one of the major flashpoints in years of gun violence.

Police believed Manj and the others were meeting to plot a hit on a rival Wolf Pack member for Dhak’s murder. Two of Manj’s associates carried guns and were later charged and convicted.

In September, a Vancouver provincial Ccourt judge stayed a charge against Manj’s older brother Aman in connection with an assault at a Vancouver nightclub on New Year’s Eve in 2015 due to the length of time the case took to get to trial.

Aman Manj was also identified in a 2012 trial as having been hunted by gang rivals who were later caught with firearms in their vehicles and arrested by Vancouver Police.

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Two young men involved in a violent Lower Mainland gang conflict were handed lengthy sentences in B.C. Supreme Court Thursday.

Taqdir Singh Gill and Walta Abay, along with five others, were arrested in October 2017 after a Vancouver Police and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation called Project Temper. Gill and Abay were originally charged with conspiracy to commit murder, as well as other counts.

But the murder conspiracy charge was stayed as part of a plea agreement reached in the case.

Gill, now 22, and the purported leader of the “Gill group” pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson, conspiracy to discharge a firearm and possession of a loaded prohibited gun.

Justice William Ehrcke accepted as joint submission from Crown and defence lawyers Thursday to sentence Gill to an additional six years in prison on top of 20 months credited for his time in pre-trial custody.

Abay, 24, was handed an additional four years in jail after pleading guilty to being in a vehicle with Gill knowing there was a loaded firearm inside.

Ehrcke noted that both men were relatively young, had pleaded guilty and were remorseful for their crimes.

Family members of each were in the court for the sentencing hearings, held one after the other at the Vancouver Law Courts.

Ehrcke laid out the agreed statement of facts in Gill’s case first.

“As part of a wider effort to investigate ongoing gang conflict on the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Department initiated Project Temper to investigate and suppress the violence being inflicted by Taqdir Gill (Gill) and his associates,” Ehrcke said.

The VPD got a court order allowing it to intercept calls between Gill and his associates starting in early October of 2017.

In the intercepts, Gill directed a youth identified as JL to burn down a Kerrisdale real estate office because “Gill believed that this person’s son owed a significant amount of money to Gill’s bosses,” Ehrcke said.

The youth recruited to do the job owed Gill money and was going to get a break on the debt for torching the business, the judge said.

In an Oct. 12, 2017 call, “Gill told JL that he needed it done tonight.” But the youth slept through his alarm, so the arson was delayed until the next night.

Just before midnight, police stopped a Ford Explorer driven by another associate with JL as a passenger “around the corner from the targeted building.”

Police found two red jerry cans filled with gasoline, a blow torch and a lighter. They let the young men go and they called Gill to advise him they “had been pulled over by the police.”

The youth tried again the next day after Gill said in a call that he needed a message sent that “he wanted the mother f–kers to pay.”

Again police stopped the would-be arsonist, who was carrying two milk jugs full of gas.

Later in October Gill directed another youth and an associate to do a drive-by shooting at a Fraser Street where some rivals lived. He told his crew “how to grab different licence plates and what to do with the rifle afterwards,” Ehrcke said.

The associates were stopped by police “with a loaded rifle” hidden in a pressure washer case in a Ford Explorer near the house to be targeted.

Later that month, Abay asked Gill in an intercepted call if he had “a small bitch” — a reference to a firearm, Ehrcke said.

“Gill responded that he had a nine.”

On Oct. 25, a GPS tracking device was placed on the vehicle of a known drug trafficker and “Abay and Gill were monitoring the movements of the GPS tracking device,” Ehrcke said.

Police removed the device and on Oct. 26, took it to Vancouver, then to Burnaby as Abay and Gill followed in a rented Mercedes.

When police tried to pull them over, the Mercedes drove past “and hit one of the police vehicles,” Ehrcke said.

“It lost control and flipped onto its side.” Gill and Abay crawled out and were arrested.

“A loaded firearm was found in the front passenger door area of the Mercedes.”

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The B.C. Prosecution Service has stayed an aggravated assault charge laid in August against a convicted drug smuggler.

Jody Archie York had been charged following an altercation at Monte Lake, which is between Vernon and Kamloops.

At the time, the RCMP said one man was injured when he was struck with a golf club, allegedly by York, before the man’s friend hit York with a machete.

York later said he was attacked first by the machete-wielding man and was only defending himself at the time.

Crown spokesman Dan McLaughlin confirmed to Postmedia this week that the charge was stayed on Nov. 22, but would not provide detailed reasons.

“The decision to stay the charges in this case was made after further information was received by the prosecutor with conduct of the file,” McLaughlin said. “After reviewing this information and the rest of the file materials, the prosecutor concluded the charge approval standard could no longer be met. In these circumstances, a stay of proceedings is the appropriate course of action.”

McLaughlin said that charge assessment guidelines dictate that “charges will only be approved or continued where Crown Counsel is satisfied that the evidence gathered by the investigative agency provides a substantial likelihood of conviction and, if so, that a prosecution is required in the public interest.”

“In this case, the prosecutor concluded the test was no longer met and directed the stay of proceedings,” McLaughlin said.

In 2011, York was sentenced in the U.S. to five years in prison as a leader of a major international drug smuggling ring who prosecutors said worked on behalf of B.C. Hells Angels.

York told a judge at his Seattle sentencing that he had already reformed and had turned away from gang life.

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More than 300 mourners packed a Maple Ridge church Saturday to remember slain Hells Angel Chad Wilson.

Some members of the notorious biker gang and their support clubs arrived on Harleys — many of which had temporary one-day insurance to attend the service at the Maple Ridge Alliance Church on Dewdney Trunk Road.

Others, like senior Vancouver member and sometimes spokesman Rick Ciarniello, arrived by cars or limousine.

Police from the B.C. Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, the Vancouver Police Department and various RCMP detachments were also on hand, monitoring the event and photographing those in attendance.

Wilson, 43, was a member of the Surrey-based Hardside chapter when he was found shot to death under the Golden Ears Bridge in Maple Ridge on Nov. 18.

The Integrated Homicide Team has not disclosed a motive for Wilson’s death beyond a link to his membership in a criminal organization.

Postmedia has learned that investigators are looking at the possibility his death resulted from an internal dispute within the Hells Angels. Wilson, with a long history in the drug trade, also had many others who could have wanted him dead.

While a member of the San Diego “Dago” chapter of the Hells Angels in 2006, he injured several members of the Outlaws in a shootout in South Dakota. He was later acquitted on attempted murder charges but pleaded guilty to being an alien in possession of a firearm.

Once released from jail, Wilson returned to B.C. and joined the Haney Hells Angels chapter. He was convicted in Spain several years ago of importing a tonne of cocaine into the country.

Again, he returned to B.C., later splitting from the Haney chapter and joining the new Hardside group.

His Hardside brothers handed out arm bands that said “in memory of Chad,” as well as black T-shirts with his image on the front and “forever Bumps” on the back.

B.C. Hells Angels were joined by bikers wearing HA patches from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I. and New Brunswick.

Former B.C. resident Damion Ryan, a Hells Angel in Greece, came from Europe for the service, arriving with a scarf masking his face. Ryan wore a “Filthy Few” patch on the front of his camouflage vest — which normally indicates a biker’s role as an enforcer.

Police say Canadian Hells Angels are banned from wearing that patch.

Hells Angel Damion Ryan, who is based in Greece, wore a scarf over his face at Chad Wilson’s funeral

With Ryan was another B.C. man, Andreas Terezakis, whose father Tony was convicted in 2006 of trafficking drugs in the Downtown Eastside and brutally assaulting addicts who owed him money. The younger Terezakis wore a Greek Hells Angels vest to the funeral with the bottom “rocker” patch only, indicating he is a prospective member of Ryan’s chapter.

Also at the service were members of support or puppet clubs, including the Throttle Lockers from the Okanagan, the Devil’s Army from Campbell River, the Langford Savages, the Teamsters’ Horsemen, Surrey’s Shadow Club, the Jesters and the Veterans MC.

Newer support clubs were also present, like the Street Reapers of Fort Langley, the Lynchmen and the Dirty Bikers.

One Throttle Locker member wore a sticker on his helmet that said “shoot informants, not drugs.”

Maple Ridge Alliance Church Pastor Neil Penner said he was surprised at how many people attended the service. He said the church welcomes anybody who wants to respectfully worship.

“They have great respect for the church,” he said, of those who attended Wilson’s funeral.

Asked why he would welcome the Hells Angels, Penner said: “I take any opportunity to help people.”

After the funeral, the bikers rode over the same bridge under which Wilson was found dead to attend a wake at the Hardside’s Surrey clubhouse. Again police followed to keep watch.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said officers monitored Saturday’s events because “outlaw motorcycle gangs are a priority for CFSEU.”

“The murder of Chad Wilson was significant and we expected there to be in excess of 300 bikers at his funeral,” she said.

“As we know from past investigations, some members of the Hells Angels are involved in drugs, weapons and violence-related offences. Therefore, CFSEU had a number of our uniformed gang enforcement team and other team members present to gather intelligence and assist our policing partners in ensuring public safety.”

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United Nations gang hitman Cory Vallee was handed two life sentences Friday for conspiracy to kill rivals in the Red Scorpion gang, as well as the deadly shooting of Kevin LeClair in a Langley parking lot almost a decade ago.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon said it was necessary to send a strong message “that gang warfare on the streets of our communities will not be tolerated.”

“Vallee and other members of the UN gang engaged in an organized, highly sophisticated, technologically adept and well-armed manhunt for the Bacon brothers and their associates,” Dillon said.

“Vallee played a key role and was the only one paid full-time to hunt and kill in the conspiracy. His blameworthiness is high.”

Vallee was convicted in June of first-degree murder for LeClair’s slaying, which carries an automatic life sentence with no parole for at least 25 years.

He was also found guilty of conspiracy to kill Red Scorpion brothers Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon and their gang associates over several months in 2008 and 2009.

A sentencing hearing on the conspiracy count was held over several days in October and November, resulting in the second life sentence Friday.

Dillon said members of the public were terrified by several public shootings that were part of the conspiracy, including the Burnaby slaying of stereo installer Jonathan Barber on May 9, 2008, who was mistaken for one of the Bacons. His girlfriend Vicky King was seriously injured.

“Vallee had many opportunities to relinquish his role as a hitman, especially after the horror of the mistaken shooting of the innocents, Barber and King,” Dillon said.

“That he did not pull back is a chilling reminder of the capacity for violence in this man.”

She said that Vallee was paid by the UN for his work as a hitman, missing so many days at his regular job as a North Vancouver garbageman that he was fired in October 2008.

“He was hired by the leader of the gang solely to hunt, wreak havoc and to kill rival members.”

He opened fire on LeClair at a crowded Langley strip mall on the afternoon of Feb. 6, 2009.

“This killing was performed execution style in daylight in the parking lot of a busy shopping mall. He was the designated hitman or shooter on this mission and performed his role to the full with an automatic weapon,” Dillon said.

“These events were unbelievable, movie-like, to citizens not expecting to find themselves in a gang war zone.”

She said Vallee had no one speak up for him at his sentencing and has provided no explanation to the court about why he committed the crimes. He refused to participate in almost all inmate programming and he has continued to maintain close ties to UN gang members while in jail.

“He remained loyal to his criminal organization, requesting to have continued contact with known co-conspirators and other gang members. He did not accept responsibility for his actions and did not directly or through counsel express a scintilla of remorse,” Dillon said.

“In the face of the obvious dangerousness of this offender, his propensity to kill for money and the maintenance of contacts with the UN gang, this lack of information is troubling and suggests the need for a severe sentence, in the face of persistent potential danger to the public. There is no basis here for this court to conclude that Vallee will be any different in character if he is ultimately released from jail.”

She also ordered Vallee to have no contact with a long list of UN gang members and associates, including three men who pleaded guilty in May 2008 to murder and conspiracy to kill Jonathan Bacon in Kelowna in 2011.

Dillon said inmates connected to the UN gang have written coded letters to each other in jail and have improperly shared disclosure in their various criminal cases.

“Continuing communication between UN gang members or associates potentially perpetuates criminal activity within the UN gang culture of loyalty,” Dillon said. “Maintenance of the UN gang as a criminal organization through continued contact between members and associates is not to be fostered in the interest of public safety.”

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