Double murders highlight bloody history
Mexican Riviera dangerous for Canadian underworld figures long before deaths of GTA men
The Mexican Riviera was a popular and dangerous spot for Canadian mobsters long before last Friday’s double murders in a resort restaurant.
Two GTA men who Mexican authorities connect to organized crime were shot to death in broad daylight while dining at Hotel Xcaret, south of Playa de Carmen, near Cancún, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
The victims are identified by the state prosecutor’s office and National Guard as Robert James Dinh, also known as Cong Dinh, and Thomas Cherukara, both of the GTA.
Mexican authorities call Cherukara an “alleged member” of the Hells Angels, but a police source with extensive knowledge of the Canadian Hells Angels said he does not belong to the biker club.
“He’s definitely not a member,” the police source said. “He could be connected.”
Cherukara was one of five people charged in Toronto in June 2015 as part of a police operation called Project Fire Extinguisher that targeted cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy sales.
Quintana Roo is disputed territory for several major and lesser cocaine trafficking organizations, according to journalist Luis Horacio Nájera, who covered the drug trade in Mexico before being granted refugee status in Canada after death threats. The Sinaloa, Jalisco Nueva Generación, Los Zetas and Gulf cartels are among the groups fighting for a share of the Quintana Roo market, he said.
A woman was shot but not seriously injured in the attack.
Canadian Hells Angels bikers owned a luxury condo by Playa del Carmen that was open to all members, said a former member of the United Nations gang, who asked not to be named.
“It’s kind of like a clubhouse,” he said. “It was described to be as their international clubhouse.”
The condo is inside a gated community, protected by an armed guard, he said. It’s close to a golf course and has a peanut-shaped pool, built-in barbecue, with six bedrooms over two storeys. It’s for business and pleasure, he said.
“I met cartel guys at that actual house,” he said.
While his stay was pleasant, many Canadian underworld figures haven’t left Mexico alive.
Bolton mobster Daniele Ranieri was found bound and executed in a ditch in the Cancún area in March 2018. Ranieri fled to Mexico in 2015 after York Regional Police issued a warrant for his arrest for extortion.
Police believe Ranieri was connected to the international criminal organization of the late Vito Rizzuto of Montreal.
The body of Ranieri’s associate, Michael Graham Cudmore, 39, was found in June 2020 in a ditched car on the side of a road in rural Mexico.
Joseph Catroppa of Innisfil, Ont., was shot dead outside a hotel in Cancún, Mexico, in September 2020. Catroppa did prison time in Mexico for drug offences and was convicted in Canada of murdering a Woodbridge man in 2000 in a nightclub dispute.
The best man at his prison was mobster Angelo Musitano of Hamilton, who was later murdered.
On Aug. 24, 2018, Nabil Alkhalil, of Canada, was shot dead in a posh suburb of Mexico City. He moved there from Vancouver in 2013 after he was threatened with deportation for cocaine trafficking.
His younger brother Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil was a part of the Wolfpack Alliance criminal association and is now serving a life term for murder for his role in the 2012 murder of Johnny Raposo of Toronto at the Sicilian Sidewalk Café on College Street Toronto.
Court heard that Raposo was murdered over a dispute about importing drugs into Canada from Mexico.
Nabil Alkhalil, 42, ran a luxury car dealership and police said he was also associated to drug trafficking and the Wolfpack Alliance criminal organization.
Guiseppe Bugge, of Vancouver, who police described as a Hells Angels associate, was fatally shot on Aug. 17, 2018, in a posh shopping centre in Guadalajara.
Vancouver gangster Jodh Singh Manj, 31, was shot to death on Dec. 5, 2018, after leaving a gym in a commercial complex in the Mexico City neighbourhood of Santa Fe.
Salih (Sal) Abdulaziz Sahbaz, considered a top member of the B.C.based United Nations gang, was shot dead on Jan. 5, 2012 near Mazatlan.
B.C. gangster Thomas Gisby was shot dead at close range in front of customers a Starbucks in Nuevo Vallarta in April 2012.