KANG GANG BUSTED
A massive police investigation of drugs has led to criminal charges against more than a dozen members of the Kang group and associated Red Scorpions.
A major Vancouver police investigation has led to dozens of charges against members of the notorious Kang gang and their Red Scorpion associates, Postmedia News has learned.
During the investigation, police seized illicit drugs, caches of restricted firearms and even a pressure cooker bomb that was intended “to endanger the life of person or persons unknown.”
Charged with possessing the bomb, in Vancouver on July 19, 2018, are Csongor Szucs and Kyle Latimer — Red Scorpion associates alleged in court documents to be part of a criminal organization that includes Latimer’s father, Craig, Jamie Bacon and convicted Surrey Six killer Cody Haevischer.
Neither Bacon, who is in custody awaiting trial next month on a charge of counselling to commit murder, nor Haevischer, who is serving a life sentence, were charged this week despite being named in the indictment.
The investigation, which also involved the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and the RCMP, dates back to 2017 when the Kang group broke away from their former associates in the Brothers Keepers gang and became locked in a bloody conflict across the Lower Mainland.
Last month, Vancouver police, with the assistance of the other agencies, executed search warrants at several locations in connection with the investigation.
This week, police arrested more than a dozen Kang group members, as well as the Red Scorpion-linked associates. Over the last two days, at least 14 people charged in the case have made appearances in Vancouver Provincial Court.
Even Kang parents Gurcharn Singh and Mohanvir Kaur Kang and uncle Ranbir Kang are facing charges for allegedly participating in the activities of a criminal organization in Burnaby and Maple Ridge between February and April 2018, according to court documents obtained by Postmedia.
Gurcharn and Mohanvir’s son Randeep “Randy” Kang was shot to death in Surrey last October, in a targeted hit that left his brother Gary wounded. No charges have yet been laid in the slaying.
Gary, along with incarcerated brother Sameet or Sam, have now been charged with commission of an offence for a criminal organization between May 2017 and August 2018, along with associates Pashminder “Jason” Boparai, Manveer Braich, Kristoffer Ghuman and Jitesh Vagh.
They allegedly conspired, along with Kyle Latimer and former realtor Omid Mashinchi, to traffic narcotics over a 15-month period that began last year.
Mashinchi, who is not charged in the case, just pleaded guilty in Boston to money laundering. Postmedia earlier revealed that Mashinchi was associated to the Wolf Pack gang coalition and had been leasing condos out to various gangsters, including the North Vancouver penthouse where Brothers Keepers boss Gavinder Grewal was murdered last December.
Latimer and his father also face several firearms charges for allegedly possessing 19 restricted firearms and 22 prohibited firearms, as well as 14 silencers, in Richmond on April 11, 2018. Among the prohibited firearms were six Browning .22 calibre buck mark rifles, a 9mm Uzi 45 pistol, four Kel-Tec 9mm sub2000 rifles, another Kel-Tec rifle with a shortened barrel and two Simonov SKS rifles with shortened barrels.
Neither Vancouver Police nor the anti-gang CFSEU would comment Thursday on the arrests or the investigation. A news conference about the case was planned for Friday morning in downtown Vancouver.
Sources say the arrests will decimate the Kang group, alleged to be running drug lines selling fentanyl, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine throughout Metro Vancouver. The seizure of dozens of firearms is also expected to help curb gang violence in the region.
Gary Kang and Ghuman are also facing firearms charges.
Two separate indictments stemming from the investigation were sworn Aug. 7 and obtained by Postmedia. One lists nine Kang family members and associates charged, though contains references to Kyle Latimer, Mashinchi and others not charged. A second indictment lists five accused — Latimer, his dad, Craig, Czucs, Jacob Pereira and Anduele Pikientio, but mentions Bacon, Haevischer and Sam Kang as being part of the criminal organization.
Last year, the B.C. director of civil forfeiture named both Kyle and Craig Latimer, Szucs and Pereira and others in a civil case seeking the forfeiture of vehicles, cash, jewelry, cellphones and computers seized during an investigation “into a group of individuals believed to be operating clandestine drug laboratories.”
The civil forfeiture case claims that the Latimers were stopped by Delta Police as they drove away from their Tsawwassen residence in a Hyundai on Feb. 9, 2017.
Police allege they found a hidden compartment containing $51,000 in cash stuffed into a copper box, $52,000 packed in a yellow cloth bag, and $7,300 in a silver briefcase. Next to the cash, police found a digital scale, a Lee Enfield Ishapore .303 calibre rifle, a Siminov SKS 1952 Tula Factory rifle, a Winchester Model 1200 12-gauge pump-action with a filed down serial number and sawed off barrel, and a Kimel AP9 9mm machine pistol, the civil suit said.
Both men claim in their statement of defence that police violated their Charter rights during the search.