The Notorious Bacon Brothers (20 page)

Chapter 8

Paralysis: 2008–2009

One of those people I wouldn't understand was Joe “J Money” Krantz, even though I've actually been called by that same nickname. He looked the part, with tats, pumped-up muscles, lots of jewelry and a habit of wearing his hair in cornrows. Adopted, Krantz had a hard time fitting into mainstream society, and what his friends called “feelings of inadequacy” drove him to work out obsessively. Though never truly big, he was very strong and served as manager of the World Extreme Fighting Fight Team and a mixed martial arts trainer to some pretty big names at his World Extreme Fighting Club. He even fought a few times.

On April 15, 2008, police raided his home. In it, they found 4.5 ounces of cocaine, 8.7 ounces of crack, 2 ounces of heroin, a 9mm handgun, a .380-calibre handgun, two sets of brass knuckles, body armor, schedules and a ledger for his runners (both day and night shifts), and product inventory sheets with codes for cocaine and heroin. And, so that there was no confusion as to who his friends were, the police found clothing and paraphernalia with logos from the Independent Soldiers' Kelowna chapter and the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter. The drugs were all divided into single-use packages, and the handguns—both loaded—were found out in the open on the kitchen counter.

They also found Krantz's 8-year-old daughter, who was not in the house at the time. After his arrest, she was interviewed by a social worker, whom she told, “Dad is always selling little white rocks.” She described how Krantz broke a large rock into smaller pieces and put the “rocks” and the “dust” into little bags. She also described backpacks full of cash and a machine her dad “used to grind the green moss” that was put in rolling papers and smoked. She did, however, point out that she had never seen guns or ammunition around the house.

The girl assumed her dad had been arrested for the little white rocks and told them he often talked about hockey equipment (his records indicated that various drugs were given code names like “helmets” and “shoulder pads”).

She also described a strange existence at her dad's house (at which she lived only on weekends), in which she was subject to great wealth—including a big-screen plasma TV and a queen-sized bed in her room—but also great secrecy. Her dad and his girlfriend had forbidden her to talk about money. She recalled one time in which she innocently mentioned that she was glad they were “rich,” and her father hit her, confined her to her room and took away her Nintendo DS as punishment. She also talked of traveling with her father while he took what were almost certainly drugs to various people to “sell for him” and how she had seen him share a smoke with a lady whose “house st[ank].”

Six months later, on October 20, 2008, Krantz was just closing up his strip-mall gym, the World Extreme Fighting Club, at about nine in the evening when he was killed by a spray of gunfire.

It's not uncommon for the death of a gangster to be memorialized, but after Krantz was shot, the community came alive in a festival of mourning. Facebook pages popped up extolling him as a great guy and, invariably, a great father. Most of the people who posted on them used pseudonyms. A couple I spoke with via e-mail extolled his sense of humor, his style, his kindness and generosity and, always and above all, his attentiveness as a father. When I brought up the fact that I don't think a good father, much less a great one, hits a child for an innocuous remark, takes her on drug runs, and has her live part-time in a house full of dangerous drugs and loaded weapons, they all said the same thing: “You just don't understand.”

So hard did his community take Krantz's death that a number of videos memorializing him showed up on YouTube, at least two of which showed pictures of his daughter. And then something truly surprising happened. A few days after his death, a mural in his honor appeared on a wall at R.E. Mountain Secondary School in nearby Langley. It depicted a red heart wrapped in a gold ribbon surrounded by 11 huge diamonds. Along with his name, its three bits of text read: “Rest in peace,” “Tragically gunned down October 20th 2008” and “Always missed but never forgotten one love always.”

Many of those same people were surprised and even saddened to see the mural painted over, despite the fact that it was a tribute on a public high school to a man facing drug and weapons charges who was gunned down by fellow gangsters.

Later, when his girlfriend, Nicole Cooper, reported on Facebook that “social services” would not pay the $1,050 she requested for a gravestone for the man who drove a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade with 22-inch spinners and a vanity license plate that read “JMONEY,” it was met with outrage and dismay from her supporters.

Everyone involved in the drug trade in Canada knows American cops are not like Canadian cops and, more important, American judges are not like Canadian judges. If you get caught down there, you're very likely to spend a long time behind bars, God knows where, with God knows whom.

Smart traffickers, like Clayton Roueche and many Hells Angels, do their best to stay out of the United States, doing their business in Canada and vacationing in Mexico or places like the Dominican Republic.

But the United States is where the money is, so somebody has to go there, despite the obvious risks. And, due to a three-year investigation, the American authorities knew who it was. Robert Shannon was a Maple Ridge truck driver, and his friend, Abbotsford's Devron Quast, managed a car dealership. But American authorities also alleged that they had higher-paying jobs running a drug exporting business for the B.C. Hells Angels and that Shannon had even once paid to have a rival murdered.

In June 2008, an undercover officer lured Shannon, Quast and some associates to Ferndale, Washington, with the lure of a big haul. (Ferndale is a humdrum town not far from the Canadian border whose claim to fame comes from the fact that every time town authorities paint over the Metallica logo on its main bridge it reappears, as if by magic, soon thereafter.) At the house, authorities arrested Shannon, Quast and some of their American contacts—Todd Gabriel, Chance Gerrior and Korinne Doggett. Arrested later were Phillip Stone of Abbotsford, Richard Jansen of Chilliwack, Tomohisa Kawabata of Vancouver (whom they said paid $3.3 million for a load of marijuana to be delivered to New York City) and Jesse Holmes of Blaine, Washington, who they alleged rented a warehouse in Bellingham for the weed.

What was shocking about the Shannon arrest was the magnitude of it. Not only did the Americans seize 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 7,000 pounds of BC Bud and $3.5 million in cash, they learned of a sophisticated operation run on behalf of the Hells Angels, who were fortunate to escape indictment, although it came out in court that full-patch Hal Porteous once stepped in to intimidate a debtor on Shannon's behalf. Shannon, attempting to look much more youthful than he really was, can also be seen in a self-aggrandizing (and unintentionally funny) rap video Porteous made about his gangster lifestyle. The investigation revealed that Shannon was the leader of a group who transported weed over the border primarily in hollowed-out logs on timber trucks, but also in RVs and even in a church van. Their business was so developed, they offered insurance to their suppliers, giving them a $425 payout for every pound of weed confiscated by law enforcement. It was also learned that Shannon ordered the killing of Independent Soldier Jody York, who owed the organization $70,000. Shannon let York off the hook after the would-be assassin shot and missed.

And, as is the fear among Canadian drug traffickers, the American courts came down hard. Shannon was sentenced to 20 years (which in the United States really means 20 years). Quast, seeing which way the trial was heading, cut a deal with prosecutors in which he totally gave up everything on Shannon and received a lighter, 75-month term. Before he turned, Quast received letters from Shannon at first imploring him not to cooperate with prosecutors, then threatening him if he did. In a truly pathetic move, Shannon even threatened Quast's grandmother, who was in a nursing home.

While it looked like the Americans were doing a pretty good job of putting Canadian gangsters behind bars, some disturbing facts about how known gangsters are treated north of the border came to light.

At 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve 2008, a man walked into the Mission Memorial Hospital's emergency room. He'd been shot. He was bloodied and in poor shape, but not in immediate danger of losing his life. As is always the case in Canada, the emergency room staff called the police because a firearm was involved; but they quickly realized that they might have been involved in something larger when they were undressing him and saw he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

The man was Dennis Karbovanec, admitted killer, longtime Red Scorpions member and extra-close associate of the Bacon Brothers. Police arrived to question him and begin an investigation. It's not a crime to get shot, and Karbovanec refused to talk about who shot him or why, but he was actually already in trouble.

With a warrant already out for his arrest, on October 23, 2008, Karbovanec had been stopped by police. They found he was wearing a bulletproof vest and had a loaded handgun with a silencer in a hidden compartment in his leased GMC Yukon Denali. He was charged with 11 counts of weapons possession and other infractions. The officers who had the Denali stopped claim Jonathan Bacon drove up in a black Mercedes-Benz and motioned for Karbovanec to come with him. He only left, without Karbovanec, after the cops had drawn their weapons.

Knowing who was really in charge, Abbotsford police negotiated with the Bacon Brothers to facilitate a deal for Karbovanec. They promised to drop all but one small charge on the condition that the Bacons surrendered their friend's entire cache of weapons. On Karbovanec's behalf, Jonathan Bacon brought Abbotsford Detective Lyle Simpson 114 sticks of dynamite, a hand grenade, 7 handguns, 2 shotguns, a hunting rifle and an Uzi submachine gun. Karbovanec was then released on $15,000 bail.

When news of that deal and of vacation pictures of Kabovanec and the Bacon Brothers, among others, enjoying great times at Mexican resorts while facing tons of charges in Canada emerged, people became outraged. Social media and the comment areas of mainstream media were alive with people complaining about the fact that accused murderers could be gallivanting around the tropics. It appeared as though their own law enforcement and courts were doing nothing to keep the bad guys off the streets. The police knew who the criminals were; there just didn't seem to be anything they could do about it. What made it more galling was that the same kids committing the same crimes just a few miles to the south were being put away for long stretches.

And the rough justice of the gangs continued unabated. Joshua Hedrick was a tough guy who worked as an enforcer with the Crew, the Prince George crack dealers and enforcers. He'd been arrested several times for aggravated assault and other violent crimes. He was a friend of Scott Payne, the leader of the Renegades. But he had been, according to police, reducing his involvement with the gang and living at his mother's house in Maple Ridge.