A key government witness at the trial of Mexican Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman testified in New York this week that he met with Canadian Hells Angels on behalf of the cartel to arrange the hit of a drug dealer.

The witness, Guzman’s former right-hand man Alex Cifuentes, said the hit on the dealer was never completed, according to the New York Times and other media outlets covering the trial. Cifuentes, a Colombian, provided no details of who in the notorious biker gang he contacted.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Wednesday that the testimony about a link between Canadian Hells Angels and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is not startling news to law enforcement.

“It is no surprise that this information is coming to light, as the arms of the Hells Angels, especially Canadian Hells Angels, are far-reaching locally, nationally, and internationally,” Winpenny said. “The scope of their criminal involvement in the drug trade and other ventures is global and, as we’ve seen time and time again, there is almost always violence associated to it.”

In his 2018 book Hunting El Chapo, former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Andrew Hogan described Guzman’s deep links to Canada and B.C. in particular.

Hogan said Sinaloa cocaine would be moved across the Arizona border and up to the Washington-B.C. border “where the loads would be thrown on private helicopters. The birds would jump the border and drop the coke out among the tall lodgepole pines of British Columbia.”

“Chapo’s men had connections with sophisticated Iranian organized-crime gangs in Canada,” Hogan wrote. “A network of outlaw bikers — primarily Hells Angels — were also moving his cocaine overland and selling it to retail dealers throughout the country.”

Hogan also said he and the other officers working on the special task force to capture Guzman “were caught off guard by his deep infiltration of Canada.”

He noted that Guzman had a young Sinaloa man set up as a college student in Vancouver in about 2009 “to run his drug distribution and money collection throughout Canada.”

The Vancouver Sun reported on some of Guzman’s cartel connections in B.C. in 2014. His cartel contacts in Metro Vancouver were dropping off hockey bags stuffed with hundreds of thousands of dollars destined for Guzman’s U.S. bank accounts. One of the B.C. men later convicted in California in the Sinaloa case was connected to Montreal’s West End gang and some B.C. Hells Angels, according to court documents obtained at the time.

Former RCMP Supt. Pat Fogarty said Wednesday that the Hells Angels had “a continuous working relationship” with other Canadian organized crime groups and with Mexican and other cartels.

Through their connections, the groups “facilitated the transport, distribution and financial requirements for cocaine distribution in Canada,” said Fogarty, now CEO of the Fathom Research Group.

Hells Angels spokesman Rick Ciarniello did not respond to a request for a comment on the testimony at the Guzman trial.

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Hundreds of potential jurors for the upcoming Jamie Bacon trial gathered Saturday at the Vancouver Law Courts for a rare weekend sitting.

There were so many who received notices for the Feb. 4 trial that they filled three courtrooms on the fifth floor, a section of the great hall on the fourth floor and most of the public gallery and lobby of Courtroom 20 — the high-security basement courtroom specially constructed for the Air India terrorism case.

There was even a refreshment table outside Courtroom 20 with free coffee, tea, water and snacks for the roughly 580 members of the public who attended.

All the potential jurors were connected to Courtroom 20 by video monitors so they could listen as B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Wedge explained the process of whittling the large group down to 14 jurors and two alternates.

Bacon, a former Abbotsford resident, is charged with counselling an associate to murder another associate between Nov. 30, 2008 and Jan. 2, 2009. The man survived the alleged murder plot.

There are several sweeping publication bans in place for the trial, which is scheduled to run for 10 weeks once it begins next month.

Bacon stood up in the prisoner’s box as the charge he faces was read aloud Saturday. Asked for his plea, he responded clearly: “Not guilty.”

Wedge told the jury pool that “all of us involved in the administration of justice are well aware of the inconvenience that jury duty may cause you — witness all of you here today on a Saturday.

“However, we are fortunate to live in a free country where the rule of law prevails and one of the most important fundamental rights is the right to trial by a jury.

“One of your responsibilities as citizens of Canada is to participate in the system of justice by acting as jurors from time to time, and both society and the law greatly benefit from your experience.”

She explained that Canadian law allows just 12 jurors to deliberate and reach a verdict.

“However in certain cases, the trial may begin with 13 or 14 jurors. Given the anticipated length of this trial, which is approximately 50 days, I have decided it is in the interests of justice to select 14 jurors in this case,” Wedge added. “That is to ensure that a complete jury is available to deliberate.”

Wedge said she would do a random draw to select the two jurors who will be excused before deliberations.

She said two alternate jurors would also be selected in case the other 14 are not all available at the commencement of the trial.

The hundreds who attended Saturday were broken into groups of 40 by a random draw. Each group was assigned a time and date to return to court next week, where they will be questioned individually in the second phase of jury selection, she said.

“In this case, the law also allows counsel to challenge the jury panel for cause by inquiring from each of you as to whether or not you are able to judge this case impartially due to pretrial publicity,” Wedge said.

“Every juror must be impartial, which means that every juror must approach the case with an open mind and without preconceived ideas.”

She noted that if any of the potential jurors had any association to anyone involved in the case, they had to inform her when they return to court next week.

Just before Saturday’s proceedings began, sheriffs reminded potential jurors not to investigate or search for details of the case online or to tweet, blog or post any photos about the proceedings.

They were also told they would earn $20 a day for the first 10 days of the trial, rising to $60 daily for days 11 to 49 and up to $100 a day if the trial last 50 days or more.

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Hundreds of family and friends gathered at Delta’s Riverside Funeral Home Saturday to pay final respects to retired Abbotsford Police Sgt. Shinder Kirk.

Kirk, 59, died Dec. 22 in a two-vehicle collision near Nanaimo that left his wife Wendy and daughter Stephanie injured.

Kirk was a popular former media officer both for the Abbotsford Police Department and the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.

His younger brother Rob thanked mourners Saturday for the outpouring of support and condolences following the tragic accident.

Some of the hundreds of social media tributes praising Kirk as a humble, dedicated police officer were read during Saturday’s service, including a tweet by Premier John Horgan calling Kirk “a warm and caring man, dedicated to fighting gang violence and a much admired leader in the South Asian community.”

Other tributes from police forces around B.C. were also read.

Rob Kirk said the death was particularly tragic given that his brother “put his life on the line every day when he went to work and made it through virtually unscathed, but then ends up leaving us in a fleeting moment.

“Shinder was just a nice human being who was always willing to roll up his sleeves and help someone out,” Rob Kirk said. “It makes you ponder the thought — why do bad things happen to good people?”

He recalled looking up to his elder brother, who instilled in him a love of airplanes, as well as rock music and the B.C. Lions.

Shinder Kirk was born in Punjab, India, and immigrated with his parents and siblings in 1961 when he was just a toddler. He grew up in Richmond and loved playing sports.

Before he entered the police academy in 1981 at age 22, Kirk worked delivering newspapers, on farms, in a sawmill and later in construction. He also got a pilot’s licence and qualified to fly commercially.

Kirk began his law enforcement career at the Vancouver Police Department, where “he went from being a regular beat cop to working in traffic for the VPD.”

“When he moved over to Abby, he was part of the canine unit as well as traffic and he eventually became their media spokesman,” Rob Kirk said. “I will admit there was a silent pride I had knowing the line of work he did.”

Once Kirk was seconded to the anti-gang policing agency, he was a regular fixture in the media and did educational programs for at-risk kids. He worked on two “Teens Against Gangs” projects with The Vancouver Sun.

“Later in his career when he was in the public eye, I would get asked more often if he was related to me and I did feel a sense of pride,” his brother said.

After Kirk retired as a police officer in 2012, he continued working at the APD as a commissionaire. He also travelled from Abbotsford to Richmond twice a week to care for his 94-year-old father.

Rob Kirk said their father is particularly hard hit by the death of his eldest son.

“What I can say is this has devastated us,” he said.

A public memorial service for Kirk will also be held Saturday, Jan. 26, at 1 p.m. at Central Heights Church (1661 McCallum Rd.) in Abbotsford.

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Four guards from the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre will appear in Port Coquitlam provincial court on Monday charged with assault causing bodily harm for an alleged attack on an prisoner more than a year ago.

Charges against the four — Matthew Black, Luke Poelzer, Ryan Saunders and Neil Stirton — were laid in November 2018 in connection with an incident at the Maple Ridge institution on Sept. 18, 2017.

The alleged victim, Anthanios-Tom Mavros, has a history of mental illness and interactions with police and the court system. At the time, he was serving a 284-day sentence after pleading guilty to robbery on July 24, 2017.

Postmedia has learned that the Correctional Centre’s warden was fired after the confrontation involving the guards.

B.C. Corrections spokesperson Cindy Rose said in an emailed statement that she couldn’t comment on the assault allegation or the rare criminal charges laid against government employees.

“While I can’t comment on the matters currently before the courts, I can say generally that B.C. Corrections is committed to ensuring the duties of all staff are carried out as required by policy and the law,” her statement said. “Correctional officers are held to high standards of conduct — and as peace officers, they receive extensive training in a variety of disciplines, including de-escalation and the use of force.”

She implied that there is an internal review into what happened, though wouldn’t confirm any details.

“Any time a serious incident takes place, an internal review is conducted to help mitigate any future occurrences,” Rose said.

Union vice-president Dean Purdy also said he couldn’t comment on the charges since the matter is both before the courts and in arbitration. But Postmedia obtained a copy of a bulletin Purdy sent to union members last month.

“Four of our own are facing criminal charges after coming to the aid of a fellow correctional officer, who was violently attacked,” said Purdy, of the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union. “In September 2017, a living unit officer (guard) at a regional correctional centre in the Lower Mainland was the victim of an unprovoked, violent attack by an inmate. A number of your brothers and sisters responded to this emergency and eventually secured the prisoner.”

Purdy said that eight of the responding officers were fired and six more were disciplined.

He noted that at the time Crown laid charges against the four, they and others had been “engaged in a labour relations dispute since December 2017 and the matter is currently in arbitration.”

“Without prejudicing the case, we note that this situation could happen to any one of us working in corrections and sheriff services,” he said. “The union will vigorously defend our members, despite the lack of support from the employer. We are all on trial every day, so we must stand together and support our colleagues.”

Mavros, 37, has been before provincial court judges more than 20 times since 2004 when he was convicted in Prince George of assault with a weapon and got two years probation.

In 2011, Vancouver Police issued a news release saying Mavros was missing and his family was worried.

Anthanios-Tom Mavros photo released by Vancouver Police in 2011

Police described him as bi-polar and suffering from schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder. And the news release said that when he didn’t take his medication, he was “known to become violent.”

Since the Sept. 2017 incident with guards, Mavros was released from jail, then charged again in June 2018 for breaching probation. He got a day in jail.

On Oct. 29, 2018, he pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon in Surrey and was sentenced to another three months in jail.

Speaking generally, union official Purdy said about 60 per cent of inmates in B.C.’s 10 jails “have both mental health and addictions issues.”

“We are not becoming the default mental health facilities. We are the mental health facilities in this province that take the overflow of people who really belong in institutions but end up in jail for various reasons,” Purdy said.

“We do have dedicated mental health living units inside the jails and even those are not enough — the inmates that aren’t able to be housed in those living units are basically roaming around in the general population or the protective custody units and they just don’t belong there.”

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Adam Osborne, owner of Earth’s Edibles, said he has spoken to the people behind the candy handout and told them he doesn’t appreciate that they used packaging with his company’s name on it without his knowledge or permission.

The business that Osborne says distributed the candy does not show up on corporate records in Victoria. Postmedia reached out to companies with similar names in Calgary and the U.S. Thursday. The Calgary company said it was “not linked” to the candy.  The U.S. company did not respond.

Vancouver police said they continue to investigate, Sgt. Jason Robillard said earlier this week.

Osborne said he spoke to the VPD and explained that the candies left on vehicles had nothing to do with him or his company.

He said despite his company’s name being on the packaging, the logo was not the one he uses.

“Why would I have somebody else’s logo on there?” he said. “We don’t even have those products.”

He said his company caters to medicinal cannabis users through gourmet meals like butter chicken, Italian sausage pasta and pizzas. The company’s website also displays various strains of cannabis flowers.

“We are trying to create a lifestyle brand. We are probably going to shut down over this,” said Osborne, who is trying to move his headquarters to the U.S. “We don’t want the bad press. We have never targeted kids.”

Osborne admitted he has no licence to sell cannabis and said he likely won’t apply for one in B.C. given that he has a criminal record in the U.S. for conspiracy to distribute MDMA.

In 2009, he was sentenced to two years in jail after reaching a plea deal in Washington state in a drug conspiracy case. U.S. court documents indicate Osborne was originally charged with conspiracy to distribute and export more than five kilograms of cocaine from Washington to Canada.

He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of using a telephone or BlackBerry to facilitate the distribution of controlled substances.

The agreed statement of facts said that Osborne, while living in California in 2007 and 2008, “met up with people engaged in distributing controlled substances including MDMA and cocaine.

“During this time, while in the western district of Washington, Osborne used his cellular telephone and BlackBerry device to distribute controlled substances, including the importation and distribution of MDMA.

Osborne said his past has nothing to do with his current business, which he incorporated in B.C. in February 2008 as EE Cuisine Inc.

“I was younger. I made mistakes when I was younger,” he said of his U.S. conviction. “I realize obviously I am not going to be the first contender for somebody to get a licence for anything.”

Richmond-Queensborough Liberal MLA Jas Johal said Osborne’s criminal history is troubling.

“It’s incredibly concerning what Postmedia has uncovered. The fact an individual with a drug conspiracy conviction is running a cannabis edibles company … is a damning indictment of the NDP government and its so called safety-first message,” he said. “There is little to no vigilance under this government.”

Johal said “significant discussion” is needed about how to regulate edibles.

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Two Vancouver residents linked to an unlicensed Richmond money business say police violated their Charter rights while conducting searches of their offices in October 2015.

And Caixuan Qin, a director of Silver International, and her spouse Jian Jun Zhu deny that millions in cash and property seized by police at the time were obtained with the proceeds of criminal activity.

Lawyers for the couple, as well as Qin’s businesses — Silver International and The Style Travel Inc. — just filed their responses to a lawsuit filed last month by the B.C. civil forfeiture office.

The documents say the couple denies “the existence of any legal basis” for the forfeiture claims by the B.C. government agency.

The director of civil forfeiture alleged in its lawsuit that property and assets worth more than $4 million should be forfeited to the government because they were obtained through criminal activity.

Qin, Zhu and Silver International were charged in September 2017 with laundering the proceeds of crime, possession of property obtained by crime and failing to ascertain the identity of a client.

The charges stemmed from a massive RCMP investigation dubbed E-Pirate that alleged the company had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars from various organized crime groups trying to clean their profits from drug trafficking.

But those charges were stayed in November 2018 without explanation from the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

And Zhu and Qin noted in their court documents that they “are no longer charged with any criminal offence in relation to those matters described in the notice of civil claim.”

The government claim says Qin’s $2.3-million Vancouver house, $2 million in cash, River Rock Casino chips and gift cards seized by police during the searches are all the proceeds of crime.

Zhu and Qin denied that Silver International laundered criminals’ cash. They denied that the second company, Style Travel, also laundered funds.

They also denied any link to cocaine, marijuana bud, a hand-stun device, counterfeit identification cards, a credit-card skimmer and eight boxes of rifle cartridges seized by police during the 2015 searches.

Some of the evidence obtained in the E-Pirate investigation are documented in the civil forfeiture lawsuit, including that Silver International created no customer profiles, as required by federal laws for money services businesses carrying out transactions of more than $1,000. Instead the ledgers were coded.

And Silver International did not register as a money services business as required by federal law until after the police raid in October 2015, the lawsuit said.

Police investigators were able to cross-reference the deposits and withdrawals of several of the biggest customers caught on surveillance with the code names in the ledger, according to the court filings.

“The customers (of Silver International) included individuals linked to drug production, trafficking, money laundering, homicide, assault, possession of property obtained by crime and counterfeiting instruments and extortion,” the civil forfeiture director alleged.

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Billy Ly had been out on bail since the charge was laid in January 2016. But earlier this month, he learned that the case would no longer be going to trial in April 2019.

The reason given for the stay was that the Crown no longer had the same amount of evidence against Ly.

“I can advise that the conspiracy charge against Bill Ly was stayed on 15 January 2019, as it no longer met the charge approval standard,” Gord Comer, of the B.C. Prosecution Service, said in an email.

Ly, 35, had been arrested in the conspiracy case along with fellow Calgary gangster Troy Tran, 36. Tran’s trial was held last year in B.C. Supreme Court. The verdict in the case will be handed down later this month.

Ly’s trial was severed from Tran’s after Ly’s lawyer died suddenly in 2017, forcing a delay in his case.

The witnesses against Ly were expected to be some of the same former United Nations gangsters identified only as A, B, C and D, who testified at the trial of UN gang hitman Cory Vallee.

Vallee was convicted of first-degree murder, as well as conspiracy to commit murder, for the fatal shooting of Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair on Feb. 6, 2009, as well as plotting to kill Red Scorpion members and the Bacon brothers in 2008 and 2009.

Last month, Justice Janice Dillon sentenced Vallee to two life terms with no parole eligibility on the murder count for 25 years.

Dillon made several references to Ly’s alleged role in the murder plot in her Vallee verdict.

She said Ly was a “recognized member of the UN gang” who had rented a jeep used to hunt the Bacons outside a concert at GM Place in January 2009.

Ly was captured on wiretap telling another UN member that night “we have to like shoot ’em” and “to unload the whole thing.”

“Based upon this incident, Ly was probably a member of the conspiracy,” Dillon wrote in her 2018 ruling.

She also noted that witnesses A and B both testified that they, along with UN gang founder Clay Roueche and both Ly and Tran had “regular discussion about who was on the hit list and the bounty.”

The Vallee witnesses also said Ly was part of the UN missions to various locations around the Lower Mainland as they hunted their rivals.

The stay is not the first time Ly has had serious charges against him dropped.

Two years ago, a Calgary prosecutor stayed an attempted murder charge against Ly, who he described as a member of the Fresh Off the Boat Killers or FK.

The FK, which has close ties to B.C.’s UN gang, was locked in a bloody battle with its rivals from the Fresh Off the Boat or FOB gang.

Ly had been charged with stabbing rival FOB gangster Nick Chan in the neck outside a natural foods store in April 2013.

But two days into the trial, the Crown said he was directing a stay of proceedings because the witness identification evidence he called “didn’t come out as anticipated. ”

Another man identified at Vallee’s trial as a UN gang member, Kreshnik Ismailaj, was charged last year with first-degree murder in connection with the LeClair shooting.

Already several members and associates of the UN gang have been convicted for their role in the plot to kill the notorious siblings over several months in 2008 to 2009.

Still wanted in the murder conspiracy is Conor Vincent D’Monte, who is believed to have fled Canada in 2011.

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A B.C. man who has been linked to the Independent Soldiers gang is facing drug smuggling charges in Thailand.

Blair Curtis Stephens, 38, was arrested earlier this month in Bangkok, along with a Thai national. The head of the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board said other Canadians are also involved in the smuggling operation, which was allegedly mailing heroin hidden in shock absorbers from Thailand to Australia.

B.C.’s anti-gang agency says Stephens left Canada about six years ago when he became the focus of law enforcement in this province.

“Blair Stephens is well known to police, has criminal connections, and has a significant criminal history related to the Okanagan area,” Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Tuesday.

She said Stephens moved to Thailand in about 2013 “after increased attention due to his criminal activity” in Canada.

“Yet again, we have an example of an individual fleeing to another country escaping their criminality and associated violence.  However, as we have seen so many times before, their criminal activity catches up with them and in this case, resulted in an arrest and potential penalties in a foreign country,” she said.

Global Affairs Canada said in an emailed statement that officials are “aware of the arrest of a Canadian citizen in Thailand.”

“Canadian consular officials are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information. Due to the provisions of the Privacy Act, no further information can be disclosed,” Global Affairs spokesman Philip Hanan said.

Thailand has notoriously harsh sentences for drug trafficking — including life in prison or even the death penalty.

Thai news reports said Stephens was arrested with a Thai accomplice, Pahol Siwasirikarun, 27, on Jan. 19.

The arrests came after a joint Thai-Australia task force intercepted suspicious packages mailed to Australia on Jan. 17 that contained the heroin-laden shock observers. Police tracked the package back to Stephens.

Police seized about 3,740 grams of heroin, a kilo of marijuana and small amounts of ecstasy and cocaine as well as assets valued about approximately $350,000.

Thai official Niyom Termsrisuk told reporters at a Bangkok news conference Jan. 20 that authorities have already identified others in the criminal organization, all of whom are Canadians. He said they expect to make more arrests.

Stephens has several convictions from Vernon. He was sentenced to a year in jail in 2010 after pleading guilty to carrying a weapon, occupying a vehicle in which there was a firearm and possession for the purpose of trafficking. He also pleaded guilty that year to possession of a controlled substance and got another 30 days in jail.

Stephens is the brother of Derek James Stephens, also a gang associate currently awaiting trial on dozens of firearms charges.

Derek Stephens was charged in 2017 after a Vancouver police investigation called Project Tactic. His co-accused, Matthew Navas-Rivas, was shot to death last summer in East Vancouver.

Derek Stephens was sentenced in 2015 to four years in jail for his role in a Vancouver kidnapping orchestrated by associates and members of the Independent Soldiers gang. In 2012, he was sentenced to 11 months in jail for occupying a vehicle where there was a firearm. His co-accused in that 2010 case was Christopher Reddy, who was shot to death in 2011.

And in 2009, he was convicted in Vernon for possessing a firearm and was fined $650, plus given five-year firearms prohibition.

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The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal of murder convictions of three members of the notorious Greeks gang from Vernon.

The country’s highest court issued a statement Thursday dismissing the appeals of Peter Manolakos and his associates, Leslie Podolski and Sheldon Richard O’Donnell.

Manolakos, Podolski and O’Donnell are three of five men convicted by a jury in November 2012 of various counts in the murders of David Marnuik, Thomas Bryce and Ronald Thom in the Vernon area between July 2004 and May 2005.

Marnuik, who delivered drugs for the Greeks, was beaten to death with a baseball bat, a hammer and a blowtorch because he had taken off with some cash and a gang cellphone in the middle of a shift in the summer of 2004.

Bryce was a rival drug trafficker fighting the Greeks for turf when he was beaten with a wooden bat, then stomped at a popular beach near Vernon in November 2004. He died 17 days later in hospital.

Thom was shot to death on May 31, 2005, because Manolakos mistakenly believed Thom had provided police with information about the Greeks‘ criminal activity.

Manolakos was convicted of the first-degree murder of Thom and manslaughter in Marnuik’s death. O’Donnell was convicted of first-degree murder in the Thom slaying and second-degree murder in the deaths of Marnuik and Bryce. Podolski was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Marnuik.

All three are serving life sentences.

The Supreme Court decision came 10 months after the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed all 16 grounds of appeal filed by the trio, including that the judge improperly allowed hearsay evidence to be admitted and didn’t provide adequate warnings about the credibility of some of the criminal witnesses who testified for the Crown.

The men were found to be part of a drug-trafficking gang operating in the North Okanagan called the Greeks, headed by Manolakos, who is of Greek heritage.

Manolakos provided gold rings and vests to his members, who also had tattoos of the word “ema” — which means blood in Greek — as well as the Greek letter omega.

Jurors at the trial also heard the Greeks had different ranks within the organization, including runners like Marnuik who worked the drug lines at the street level, bankers who would supply drugs to the runners and collect the profits, and enforcers who would mete out punishment to those who broke the gang‘s rules.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are several sweeping publication bans in place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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