Police nab fugitive linked to UN gang
For nine years, B.C.'s anti-gang cops have been hunting for fugitive Khamla Wong, alleged to be an international drug smuggler with ties to the United Nations gang.
This week, they finally got their man.
Wong, 51, was arrested at Vancouver airport on Wednesday after arriving on an international flight.
Wong appeared in Surrey provincial court on Thursday on charges of conspiracy to traffic 121 kilograms of cocaine, conspiracy to import 97 kilograms of cocaine and possession of a firearm. His case has been put over until March 3.
Duncan Pound, the chief of B.C.'s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said his anti-gang agency never gives up its search for fugitives.
“We will not stop our relentless pursuit of those individuals who cause significant harm and pose the greatest risks to our safety due to their involvement in gang and organized crime activity," Pound said. “Time and time again we have sought out individuals living abroad to hold them accountable and face justice in Canada. Those who remain on the run from CFSEU-B.C. should know that we will not stop until we find you.”
Wong was charged with several others in the summer of 2012 after an investigation by the CFSEU that began four years earlier and spanned B.C., California, Mexico and Peru.
But by then, he was already in the wind.
In 2008, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had tipped their Canadian colleagues about Wong and his associates, alleging they were using a sophisticated system of encrypted smartphones to communicate and organize drug transactions on an international scale.
“The investigation revealed that a number of the accused travelled extensively throughout North and South America, conspiring to buy cocaine and importing it into Canada and then exporting ecstasy into the U.S.,” CFSEU said in its 2012 release.
Police on this side of the border seized 23 kilograms of ecstasy pills in Princeton in August 2008.
On Dec. 20 of that year, they seized 121 kilograms of cocaine at the Pacific Border Crossing. On Christmas Eve that year, they found another 97 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside a commercial transport truck carrying bananas. In May 2009, another 10 kilos of coke were seized in Burnaby.
Wong's Abbotsford home was one of several properties searched in June 2009. Four restricted and prohibited firearms were found during the searches.
The DEA had an informant who arranged to distribute encrypted BlackBerry devices to Wong and other members of the drug gang on both sides of the border. The BlackBerrys used a server inside a DEA office, allowing agents to read all the messages about drug deliveries and money drop-offs. U.S. agents sent information to CFSEU.
Authorities allege that Wong sent messages throughout late 2008 and early 2009 about purchasing dozens of kilograms of cocaine. At one point he asked for a lower price per kilo so he “could sell a higher volume of cocaine in Canada.”
Wong's lawyer, Matthew Nathanson, said his client “disputes the allegations against him.”
“We look forward to receiving the disclosure materials from the Crown,” he said.
Wong, who is also known as Khamla Siharaj, was arrested in Thailand in 2016 on drug-trafficking charges. But he was mysteriously released sometime later without explanation.
Postmedia earlier revealed that Wong had ties to two B.C. men arrested in China and Thailand on drug smuggling charges.
Former Abbotsford resident Robert Schellenberg told a court in China that Wong was the man behind the international drug syndicate in which he became ensnared after travelling to China as a tourist. Schellenberg was convicted and remains on death row.
And Blair Stephens, a former Okanagan man, was arrested in Thailand and sentenced to life in prison in another drug smuggling operation linked to Wong.
Former UN gang members who testified at two B.C. gang murder trials described Wong as a “respected elder” closely aligned with, but not a member of, their gang. One witness testified that Wong arranged for Mexican cartel contacts to kill UN gangster Jesse Adkins, a Metro Vancouver man implicated in the 2009 murder of Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair.
While Adkins was hiding out in Mexico after LeClair's slaying, others in the gang were worried he was becoming a liability because he wanted to return to Canada, said the witness, whose name is shielded by a publication ban.
Adkins' body was never found.