Wolfpack Alliance
The Wolfpack Alliance is a Canadian organized crime group. The Canadian journalist Peter Edwards and the Mexican journalist Luis Horacio Nájera wrote that the Wolfpack Alliance were "...a loosely allied and multi-ethnic group of mostly Millennial-aged gangsters who operated across the country". The police described the Wolfpack as not a single group, but rather a consortium that united several organized crime groups together.
History
Origins
The Wolfpack Alliance was founded in 2010 in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia by the Hells Angels member Larry Amero as a "side project". Hells Angels are allowed to create "side projects", as long as the other members of the relevant chapter are aware of the project and allowed to participate if they so desire. The other leaders of the Wolfpack Alliance were Jonathan Bacon of the Red Scorpions and Randy Naicker and James Riach of the Independent Soldiers. The first public evidence of the existence of the group was that Bacon was often seen with Amero on the latter's speedboat, Steroids & Silicone. The Wolfpack worked as distributors of cocaine from the Sinaloa Cartel of Mexico, whose leader was Joaquín Guzmán, better known by his moniker El Chapo.Expansion
The Wolfpack soon took in other members, most notably the Alkhalil family; Johnny Raposo of Toronto; Martino "Lil Guy" Caputo of Niagara-on-the-Lake; Shane Maloney of Montreal's West End Gang; and Nick Nero, a drug smuggler from Niagara Falls. The oldest of the Alkhalil brothers, Nabil Alkhalil, fled Canada in 2010, and settled in Ciudad López Mateos while continuing to be active in organised crime. Nabil Alkhalil served as the liaison with the Sinaloa Cartel. Rabih "Robby" Alkhalil, the youngest of the Alkhalil brothers, lived in Montreal, where he owned an expensive penthouse condominium at 555 René Lévesque Boulevard West, with a view of the St. Lawrence river that made his condo one of the most expensive in Old Montreal. Caputo, who officially worked as a property developer in the "Golden Horseshoe" area, served as the Rizzuto family's agent for the greater Toronto area.The Wolfpack leaders used encrypted texts on the Pretty Good Privacy system to communicate, and wrote frankly about plans to commit murders. Caputo had no criminal record and was one of Toronto's most successful businessmen, who owned and operated the well regarded Savourie restaurant from 1996 to 2004. Sergeant Brenda Winpenny of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – BC told the journalist Rattan Mall in 2017: “We’ve publicly confirmed in the past that the Wolfpack has a presence not only across Canada but internationally. They have had a presence in other provinces, like Ontario, for at least a couple years... and several gang members who have ties to the Wolfpack, like Hells Angel Larry Amero, have been back east for several years – albeit Larry’s in jail but he has spent a lot of time between here and Ontario and Quebec".
Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star, described the Wolfpack leaders as: "“They grew up as kids craving attention, who wanted to be rock stars, but didn’t really have any skills. They displayed an overwhelming sense of entitlement. Through their drug associations, they became more interesting to girls who are out of their league." Edwards stated the group expanded via the internet, saying: "They're bonded by the internet, not by geography. Some are in Vancouver, some are in Montreal, some are in Toronto and it doesn’t really matter – they can move around. You could say, ‘that group is from Woodbridge, those groups from Simcoe Street and Oshawa. With the Wolfpack, there isn’t a place, there’s just a shared feeling or need for the internet."
Luis Nájera, the former crime correspondent of La Reforma newspaper of Ciudad Juárez stated about the Wolfpack: "Technology, the internet, changes a lot of dynamics of power, relationships, contacts and businesses, both legal and illegal…the internet became a platform where they don’t necessarily need to be physically together always. Do you remember in the old days or in the movies where the Mafiosos got together in a dark place, or ugly warehouse, and they sit and discuss business? Those times are pretty much over now.""
The Vancouver operation and the gang war
On 16 October 2010, Gurmit Singh Dhak, the co-boss of the Dhak-Duhre gang was murdered. Dhak was shot in the face in his vehicle at the parking lot of the Metrotown Mall in Burnaby. Kim Bolan, the crime correspondent of The Vancouver Sun newspaper, wrote in 2018: "Dhak’s execution was the flashpoint for a near decade-long war that has raged across the province and left many dead and wounded in its wake. Few of those behind the violence have been held to account."Suhhveer "Sukh" Dhak, the younger brother of Gurmit, believed that the Wolfpack Alliance were the ones responsible for his brother's murder, and vowed to avenge him. Dhak had hired a team of four hitmen to hunt down the Wolfpack and stayed in touch with them via encrypted text messages on his cellphone. The hit-team placed GPS tracking devices on bottoms of vehicles belonging to the Wolfpack as a way to track them down.
On 14 August 2011, Jonathan Bacon was murdered via gunfire outside the Delta Grand Hotel in Kelowna. At about 2:45 pm on 14 August 2011, a white Porsche Cayenne carrying six people was leaving the parking lot of the Delta Grand Hotel, when a group of four masked gunmen carrying AK-47 assault rifles opened fire. The gunmen fired at least 30 shots into the Cayenne, killing Bacon, wounding Amero, and leaving a 21-year waitress, Leah Hadden-Watts, a quadriplegic, as she took a bullet straight through her neck, severing her spinal cord.
After the Kelowna incident, Amero relocated to Montreal, where he lived as a guest in Alkhalil's condo. Edwards and Nájera wrote that Amero and Alkhalil "...tightened up their own connections with Mexican cocaine suppliers" during their time in Montreal. A key member of the Wolfpack proved to be Shane Kenneth "Wheels" Maloney of the West End Gang. Alkhalil in texts to Nero described Maloney as providing the chemists, who tested the purity of cocaine that was being brought into Montreal.
The West End Gang controls the Port of Montreal, which enabled drug smuggling on a massive scale. Maloney was known as "Wheels", due to his use of a wheelchair, as he is a paraplegic owing to a vehicle incident. He was considered one of the most important Wolfpack leaders. In 2012, Maloney was charged with smuggling on behalf of both the West End Gang and the Wolfpack, and was convicted in 2017. The Wolfpack Alliance were reported to have smuggled in about 400 kilograms of cocaine per month into Montreal.
The United Nations gang aligned itself with the Dhak-Duhre group against the Wolfpack. On 16 January 2012, a United Nations gang member, Salih "Sal" Abdulaziz Sahbaz of Surrey, was murdered in Mexico. His corpse was not looted and he had some US$20,000 in his wallet. On 17 January 2012, Sandip "Dippy" Duhre, the co-boss of the Dhak-Duhre group, was shot dead while leaving a Vancouver hotel in a revenge attack for the Delta Grand Hotel incident. On 18 January 2012, a United Nations gang leader, Thomas Gisby, was almost killed in a bombing of his mobile home in Whistler. Gisby fled to Mexico after the murder attempt.
On 28 April 2012, Gisby was murdered at a Starbucks In Nuevo Vallarta at about 9 am. The killers of Gisby used a.44 Magnum handgun, a rare weapon in Mexico, where the standard weapons used in murders are AK-47 assault rifles, 9 mm handguns or.38 pistols. A Wolfpack member who called himself Sossa texted Alkhalil at 10:16 am the same day from Mexico to claim credit for Gisby's murder, and exaggerated the details such as claiming to have used 50 calibre gun.
Naicker was shot dead outside of a Starbucks café in Port Moody on 25 June 2012. On 19 November 2012, Suhhveer "Sukh" Dhak and his bodyguard Thomas Mantel were murdered. Between 2010-2013, there were 20 murders in the Lower Mainland, related to the gang war started by the murder of Gurmit Singh Dhak.
A member of the Dhak-Duhre group, Manjot Singh Dhillon, took to posting images of dead wolves on his Facebook profile starting in early January 2013, as a public way of indicating he was planning to strike at the Wolfpack. At about 9:30 pm on 13 January 2013, Dhillon was found almost dead by the side of Colebrook Road in Surrey, with several bullet wounds. He died later that night of his wounds at the hospital. On 14 January 2013, Manjinder "Manny" Singh Hairan, one of the gunmen who had killed Jonathan Bacon in 2011, was shot dead in Surrey.
On 28 January 2013, Jaskaran Singh Sandhu of the Dhak-Duhre group, was murdered in Surrey. In February, Amritpal "Paul" Saran of the Dhak-Duhre group was murdered in Surrey. On 24 April 2013, Craig Widdifield was murdered outside of a gym at the Morgan Crossing shopping mall in Surrey. Widdifield was not a member of the Wolfpack, but killed only for being a friend of Amero.
The Montreal operation
The Montreal wing of the Wolfpack operated a smuggling ring, bringing cocaine via secret compartments in trucks into and from the United States. Montreal is regarded as the most important city in the Canadian underworld, as it is a major port city with ocean access, well connected via highways to other cities, and is only 332 miles from New York City, the biggest and richest drug market in North America. Edwards and Nájera wrote that Montreal was the "epicenter" of Canadian organized crime, as whatever faction that dominates Montreal dominates the national organized crime scene, as the organized crime scene in Vancouver was "fractured". Toronto was dominated by 7 'Ndrangheta families who had a "limited" range outside of the Toronto area, and the Mafia families of Hamilton were "largely a local phenomenon".Edwards and Nájera wrote that the leaders of the Montreal Mafia dealt directly with the "Five Families" of New York, while the Canadian Hells Angels whose headquarters are in Montreal were Canada's most powerful criminal syndicate, with chapters or puppet gangs in every province. Both Amero and Alkhalil lived in Montreal not so much because of their interest in seizing control of the drug market in Montreal, but rather because they wanted to use Montreal as a stepping stone to enter the New York drug market. The two men in charge who answered to Amero and Alkhail, were Frédéric Lavoie and Timoleaon Psiharis. Psharis and Lavoie bribed truck drivers who were employed by bonded trucking companies to smuggle cocaine. The Wolfpack in Montreal smuggled about 400 kilograms of cocaine per month.
On 8 August 2012, Alkhalil's condo was raided by the Sûreté du Québec and the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal with warrants for the arrest of both Alkhalil and Amero, who had both already fled. Found inside of Alkhalil's condo was a group photograph of the Wolfpack leaders taken in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The fact that Amero, Alkhalil, and Shane "Wheels" Maloney of the West End Gang were in the center, indicated that they were the leaders of the group, as it is the normal custom in the Canadian underworld for leaders of the gang to be placed in the center of a group photograph.
More trouble for the Wolfpack occurred on August 11, 2012 when a Montreal Wolfpack drug courier Ricardo Ruffolo was murdered when answering his door. On September 26, 2012, Lavoie called a meeting in a downtown Montreal bar with Mihale Leventis and another man who remains unidentified, who was working as a police informer. The meeting discussed plans to import cocaine from Mexico and Peru.