Less violence in 2024 as warring B.C. gangs realign

B.C.’s long-running gang conflict shifted in 2024 from a battle involving three warring groups to one with two main sides.

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Published Dec 27, 2024  •  4 minute read

Police attend the scene of a Langley shooting.

B.C.’s long-running gang conflict shifted in 2024 from a battle involving three warring groups to one with two main sides, an officer with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit says.

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Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said the change has also come with some instability, as a number of independent unaligned gangs are also now operating in the province.

Those gangs will do the dirty work for either side in the conflict, such as taking contracts for murder or transporting and selling drugs, she said.

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“I think the biggest thing with the gang landscape is that for a few years, we’ve had sort of that three-sided conflict, and now over this last year, it looks like it’s gone back to more of a two-sided conflict,” Winpenny said.

Between 2022 and the start of 2024, the conflict involved the Wolfpack gang alliance against the Latimer-Kang-Red Scorpion group, also known as BIBO, with the UN gang as the third player opposed to both.

The BIBO group is “now aligned more with the UN over this last year,” Winpenny said. That means Wolfpack and affiliated Brothers Keepers are on one side of the conflict with the UN as their rival “and then you have all those independents that seem to be doing work for whoever.”

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. Photo by Francis Georgian /PNG

Overall, gang violence was down across the region over the last year, though statistics aren’t yet available.

But there have been high-profile gang incidents, like the targeted shooting in Langley in September of a high-profile Brothers Keeper, Barinder (Shrek) Dhaliwal. He escaped with minor injuries, but the hitman, Johnathan Hebrada-Walters of Alberta, was killed in a suspected exchange of gunfire. No one has been charged.

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Both Dhaliwal’s brothers, Harb and Menander, were killed in earlier targeted shootings, Herb Dhaliwal in 2021 and Meninder Dhaliwal in 2022. Harb Dhaliwal’s killer pleaded guilty, while the accused in Meninder Dhaliwal’s killing are expected to go to trial in 2025.

The CFSEU had several major successes in 2024, Winpenny said, such as the return to B.C. of Conor D’Monte, who had been on the run for 11 years before he was arrested in Puerto Rico in 2022. He gave up a court battle in January 2024 and was brought back to Canada.

D’Monte is expected to go to trial in 2025 on a charge of first-degree murder for the February 2009 slaying of rival Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair, and conspiracy to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon. He has said he is not guilty.

Others linked to the B.C. gang conflict were convicted for serious crimes in 2024, up to and including murder.

In January, Brothers Keepers hitman Tyrel Nguyen was sentenced to life for two murders. Another BK gangster, Amandeep Kang, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for heading a drug-trafficking operation selling fentanyl, heroin, meth and cocaine for the benefit of a criminal organization. His April sentencing came weeks after he survived a shooting.

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Another young hitman, Richard Reed, was convicted in September of first-degree murder for the 2020 Richmond restaurant murder of money laundering suspect Jian Jun Zhu.

At the international level, former Canadian soldier Matthew Dupre pleaded guilty in Thailand to killing former B.C. gangster Jimi Sandhu of the UN at a beachside villa in February 2022. The Wolfpack is believed to have hired Dupre to do the hit.

Throughout 2024, there was evidence of the growing international connections of B.C.’s gangs, something Postmedia News has reported on extensively.

Wolfpack gangster and B.C. Hells Angel Damion Ryan was charged in the U.S. in January for an alleged role in a foiled murder-for-hire plot targeting an Iranian dissident and his wife. The indictment said Ryan, who’s awaiting trial in Manitoba on drug charges, was hired by Iranian drug lord Naji Zindashti on behalf of the Iranian government.

Winpenny said B.C. gangs are “obviously very resourceful and bring in new people from other provinces, and establish networks and connections so they are able to profit and do their business in other areas of Canada and internationally.”

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She said the Brothers Keepers has expanded aggressively across Canada and “is moving up.”

“The BK is huge in their ability to network with people in other provinces, in an attempt to grow their enterprise.”

Winpenny said B.C.’s oldest gang, the Hells Angels, was still feeling the impact in 2024 of the loss of three clubhouses a year earlier to the B.C. government through a civil forfeiture lawsuit.

The clubhouses in east Vancouver, Kelowna and Nanaimo meant the bikers had fewer places to gather, she said.

“I think it had a pretty big impact on their ride season this last year.”

And CFSEU’s outlaw motorcycle gang unit has continued to keep the pressure on the bikers, “utilizing whatever tool they can to continue with that disruption process, whether it is municipal bylaws or other statutes,” Winpenny said.

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