Former Vancouver gangster shot to death in Mexico
For years, former Vancouver gangster Nabil Alkhalil fought to stay in Canada, his adopted country, after being threatened with deportation over a cocaine trafficking conviction.
Then he disappeared in 2013, after his brother Robby was charged with the Vancouver murder of a longtime rival Sandip Duhre.
Nabil Alkhalil recently resurfaced in Mexico, where he was shot to death in August in a luxury car dealership. One man has been arrested in the murder and another suspect has left the country, according to Mexican newspaper reports.
Nabil, 42, is the third brother in the notorious crime family to die violently.
Khalil Alkhalil, 19, was shot to death in Surrey in 2001 during a conflict over a $200 drug debt. Mahmoud, 19, was killed in a gangland shootout in the Loft Six nightclub in Vancouver in 2003.
And while the family moved to Ottawa after the two B.C. slayings, their organized crime links to the province have continued.
“The Alkhalil family is wellknown to police and has an extensive history in the gang landscape that has been well-documented,” said Sgt. Brenda Winpenny of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit this week. “As we have seen many times in the past, it is not unusual for individuals heavily involved in gang activity to flee the country in order to either avoid prosecution or continue their criminal activity.”
Robby Alkhalil, 30, remains in custody awaiting trial for the January 2012 murder of Duhre, the middle brother of three rival clan siblings. His next appearance in B.C. Supreme Court is Oct. 19.
Vancouver Police Supt. Mike Porteous said the feud between the teams of criminal brothers goes back two decades.
“It started as a dispute over drug trafficking lines in Surrey way back in the day. But it became much more personal with the murder of Khalil,” Porteous said Friday. “They’ve been involved in a conflict with the Duhre guys for a good 20 years and it kind of ebbed and flowed relative to different murders and struggles over drug territory.”
Khalil’s killer, Michael Naud, claimed self-defence and was acquitted of murder.
Prison records obtained by Postmedia say Matsqui guards overheard Nabil making threatening comments about Naud after the notguilty verdict in November 2002.
“I don’t f--king believe it. Wait until I get out,” Nabil told his sister and girlfriend during avisit.Naudwaslatershotto death in Kelowna. No one was ever charged.
Long before Khalil was killed, Nabil stabbed a young Duhre associate in Surrey’s Holly Park. He claimed he was only trying to protect his younger brothers but was convicted in 2001 of assault with a weapon and other counts.
While on day parole in July 2002, Nabil was stopped in a rented truck by Vancouver police. Officers found a loaded .45-calibre handgun in the vehicle.
"Alkhalil told police that he thought his life was in danger,” parole documents obtained by Postmedia say. “He said he believes that the Duhre brothers have a contract on his head.”
“The Duhre brothers were involved in the incident that resulted in the death of one of (Nabil) Alkhalil’s brothers. Alkhalil retaliated at the time by beating up one of the Duhres. There has been bad blood since. The Duhre brothers are considered by police to be violent as are Alkhalil and his brother Mahmoud," the documents say.
A year later, Mahmoud died in the Loft Six shooting. Sandip Duhre was one of several notorious gangsters in the nightclub when the violence broke out.
The Alkhalil family — mom, dad, five brothers and two sisters — fled the violence of the Middle East in 1990 to make successful refugee claims in Canada.
But after the death of two sons, they resettled in Ottawa in 2004 to “start life afresh," according to Federal Court documents filed for Nabil’s unsuccessful appeal of his deportation order.
He was soon in trouble with the law again, getting caught with a duffel bag containing 11 kilograms of cocaine. He was convicted of trafficking in 2008.
Porteous said the Alkhalils became more powerful in the drug trade because of close connections they had in Mexico.
“As far as drug trafficking goes, it was a little bit of a game changer for us because you had the direct importation of drugs,” Porteous said.