A CIRCLE OF MURDER
The link Between Turkey, B.C. slAyings
Turkish drug trafficker Cetin Koç was sitting in a car in one of Dubai’s most luxurious neighbourhoods, beside shiny towers that are among the tallest highrises in the world, when two hit men ran up and blasted away.
It was May 4, 2016. The Iranianborn Turkish national was shot seven times in the head and twice more in his chest and hand by Russian and Austrian-made guns equipped with silencers. Koç died instantly, his car engine still running.
The hit men — alleged to be Metro Vancouver residents Harpreet Singh Majhu and Orosman Jr. Garcia-Arevalo — raced to the airport in a rented vehicle, apparently getting into a fender bender en route. They were on a plane back to Canada before Dubai police had even identified them as suspects.
But they weren’t out of the woods. Within days, authorities in the United Arab Emirates provided the RCMP with the names of the young gang-involved men, identifying them as suspected killers.
There were brief news stories in the Canadian media at the time about two unidentified suspects in the Dubai murders. The RCMP refused to comment then and has said nothing since.
But a Postmedia investigation has uncovered disturbing details of an international murder plot that stretches from Turkey to the fields of the Fraser Valley, where the bodies of both Majhu and Garcia-Arevalo would be found within weeks of Koç’s murder.
The Canadian assassins are alleged to have been hired on behalf of Naji Sharifi Zindashti, an Iranian-born drug lord based in Turkey.
Garcia-Arevalo was shot to death on May 11, 2016, and his body dumped in an Abbotsford blueberry field. His murder remains unsolved.
Majhu’s remains were found in a burnt-out vehicle in Agassiz on June 10, 2016, Postmedia has learned. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has never revealed that a body was found that day, let alone released the identity of the victim. But sources confirmed that Majhu also met an untimely fate, which is believed to be a result of his role in the Dubai slaying.
So how did two Lower Mainland men with gang links end up allegedly involved in a targeted assassination half a world away?
Majhu, born in 1990, was raised in Delta and attended North Delta Secondary School.
He had run-ins with the police from an early age. He was charged with mischief under $5,000 in Surrey in October 2009. He was also charged with breaching a court order. He was convicted in July 2011 on both counts and handed a year of probation and a five-year ban on possessing firearms. In 2012, he was charged with trafficking, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, flight from a police officer, resisting police and assaulting police. He got a conditional sentence, which he’s alleged to have breached in January 2013 and again in May 2014.
On Boxing Day 2012, he was arrested and charged with drug trafficking in Delta.
In May 2014, while he was out on bail, Vancouver police arrested and charged him with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. He was convicted of a lesser count — driving without due care and attention — fined $500 and banned from driving for 11 months.
On Sept. 10, 2014, he was arrested by the gang squad and charged with another count of trafficking.
In November 2015 — seven months before his murder — he was convicted of both the 2012 and 2014 drug charges and sentenced to three months in jail.
Before he went to Dubai, Majhu had joined other young gangsters and traffickers to form the Brothers Keepers — a group aligned with the Red Scorpions that has split apart and turned on itself over the past year.
Majhu was photographed, likely in early 2016, with other BK members showing off necklace tattoos featuring the gang ’s name in stylized script.
In the picture, obtained earlier by Postmedia, Majhu stood beside the gang ’s leader, Gavinder Grewal, who would also die violently. Grewal was murdered last December in a North Vancouver penthouse apartment he was renting. His slaying also remains unsolved.
Garcia-Arevalo was an associate of the Brothers Keepers, aligned with what would become the breakaway Kang group. He had his own history with police.
Born in 1993, Garcia-Arevalo pleaded guilty in 2013 to two counts of driving without a licence in North Vancouver and Vancouver. He got a year’s driving suspension.
In August 2014, he was charged with trafficking in Delta. He was convicted, sentenced to 101 days in jail and received a 10-year firearms prohibition. He was also sentenced to 14 days in jail for a third conviction of driving while prohibited.
In February 2015, he was charged again with trafficking in Surrey during the previous summer. The count was still outstanding at the time of his murder and was “abated” or dropped by a Crown prosecutor in November 2016.
Sources say Majhu and GarciaArevalo had been running a drug line together.
Police in B.C. would not comment on their theory about how two young gangsters with minor records got recruited for an international hit.
In fact, after months of Postmedia requesting an interview with investigators about the Majhu and Garcia-Arevalo murders and their international links, the RCMP would only provide a brief emailed statement that left many unanswered questions.
“Whether it’s recruitment of a young person in B.C. for drug trafficking or internationally, it’s all the same,” Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said in the statement.
“It’s the lure of material possessions, the greed, the appeal to the sense of adventure and freedom but inevitably the end result is tragic.”
She said IHIT is working with the RCMP’s major crime section on the B.C. murder cases.
“In any case where there are international threads, the RCMP major crime section handles the international assistance file generally and IHIT the domestic murder,” Shoihet said.
“When it was clear there is a potential overlap, the units work together to ensure information is shared.”
She would not say why the existence of Majhu’s murder was withheld from the public for more than two years and then only confirmed in response to Postmedia queries. Garcia-Arevalo’s body was found by an Abbotsford farmer and was therefore covered by the media at the time.
“The investigations into the 2016 murders of Orosman Jr. Garcia-Arevalo and Harpreet Singh Majhu are ongoing and IHIT investigators continue to follow up on any new information,” Shoihet said.
“Anyone who may have information about these individuals is encouraged to contact IHIT.”
Friends and relatives of the two B.C. men did not respond to requests by Postmedia for interviews.
Some lamented their loss on social media.
“I miss your laugh bro, I wish I could hear it one more time,” one of Garcia-Arevalo’s friends said on Facebook.
His younger brother said: “RIP Junior, you are and always will be the best big brother, I remember when you used to take me out and we would have laughs. I’ll miss you so much and I hope you’re in a better place.”
Zindashti, believed to have ordered the Koç hit and a suspect in murders in other countries, is notorious.
In April, he was picked up in Istanbul in a police sweep that used drones to track him and other suspects. According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, he is charged with “voluntary killing by planning,” while his associates face counts of aiding a criminal organization.
The trail of death linked to Zindashti tracks back to June 2014 when Greek police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized two tonnes of heroin purportedly owned by Koç and fellow smuggler Orhan Üngan, according to Turkish news reports.
The rival drug lords believed it was Zindashti who tipped off the DEA.
So, the story goes, they plotted revenge.
Zindashti’s luxury SUV was targeted by hit men in Istanbul on Sept. 26, 2014. His 19-year-old daughter Arvu was killed, as was his 25-year-old driver-nephew. Üngan and several associates were charged in the double slaying.
It’s the lure of material possessions, the greed, the appeal to the sense of adventure and freedom but inevitably the end result is tragic.