The Notorious Bacon Brothers (6 page)

As they were killing the Graves family, Moyes and Therrien heard a knocking, then a banging on the door. After it subsided, they looked out the door to find that their car had been blocked in by another. Clearly, the people who had been knocking on the door were still on the property. A quick search located Daryl Klassen and his wife Teresa in the nearby shed, taking drugs. Both worked for Graves as dealers. Therrien recognized them and ordered them to the floor, face down. He then grabbed a nearby crowbar and bashed both of their heads in, killing them.

After the murders, the pair split up the loot (Moyes had also grabbed jewelery and other valuables from the house) and threw their weapons and the duct tape off the Mission Bridge into the Fraser River. Then it was back to the Sumas Centre to fulfill their parole requirements.

At the time, police and media appeared to think that the mass killing at the Graves farm was an act of revenge from Sandhu's people. But evidence soon linked it to Moyes, who was returned to prison in January 1997. As the Crown failed to make a sufficient case against him and he managed to mount a deft defense based on guilt by association, Moyes was again released on day parole in November 1999. After two weeks, his parole was again revoked when he tested positive for heroin. In January 2000, he was released yet again on day parole but returned to prison in September after his parole officer called his behavior “problematic.” A week later, he wrote to the RCMP admitting his role in both the Uyeyama and Graves killings.

While the Chinese (particularly the Big Circle Boys) and the Hells Angels were undeniably at the top of organized crime in Vancouver, they were hardly the only major operators. In fact, the best known gangsters in Vancouver history before the Bacon Brothers were the leaders of rival multiethnic, but predominantly Indian Canadian, gangs.

Bhupinder “Bindy” Singh Johal was born in India and moved to Vancouver in the late 1970s when he was still a small child. Even while still very young, he was identified as something of a “problem child” and did not take well to discipline. But, just as with many others like him, Johal's temperament was not something officially reported, teachers had to learn it for themselves. “When he came into Grade 8, it didn't seem like he had any problems,” said Rob Sandhu, who taught him at the same Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School Jim Chu attended. “It seems these kids are not being flagged. But teachers are raising these issues, so why aren't we acting on it?” Johal's character traits grew worse and more dangerous as he grew older, and his sudden bursts of anger and violence earned him a reputation on the streets of Central Vancouver and in the halls of Tupper. On one occasion in 1989, 18-year-old Grade 12 student Johal was called to the school's office. While the vice-principal intended a closed-door discussion on his behavior, Johal took the opportunity to give the man a brutal beating, sending him to a hospital emergency room.

Caught, Johal did not deny the beating, but in an act that smacked of cold-blooded cynicism, tried to rationalize his behavior by claiming he assaulted the vice-principal in a fit of rage brought on by the discrimination he had endured as a minority (although by no means were people of Indian descent uncommon in his neighborhood or school). Neither the judge nor school board were fooled, and Johal received a 60-day sentence and expulsion from the school.

After his sentence was completed, Johal moved to nearby Richmond and enrolled in Matthew McNair Secondary School, but was expelled after he was caught smashing the window of a car and charged with possession of a dangerous weapon. Out of school and not prepared for any other work, Johal quickly fell into organized crime.

As has been true of other immigrant groups like Serbs and Croats, many Indian arrivals brought their biases, rivalries, and bitter feuds over to Canada with them. Particularly divided was the large and generally prosperous Sikh community. A gulf between the hardliners, who supported the establishment of an independent Sikh state, Khalistan, in India's Punjab region (by violence, if necessary), and the moderates, who were more than happy to leave such politics back in India and move ahead as a community in Canada.

The Sikh community around the world was enraged in June 1984 when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the violent takeover of the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar. The violent response came to Canada in June 1985 when an Air India Boeing 747, Flight 182, took off from Montreal's Mirabel Airport with 329 people on board, headed for London and then Delhi. Over the Irish Sea, a bomb in the plane's forward hold exploded and the jumbo jet disintegrated. Less than an hour later, a similar bomb intended for Air India Flight 301 exploded in Tokyo's Narita Airport, killing two baggage handlers. One prominent Canadian Sikh, miner-turned-journalist Tara Singh Hayer, editor-in-chief of the
Indo-Canadian Times
—North America's oldest and most popular Punjabi-language newspaper—condemned the attacks. In 1988, he was shot in the back by a 17-year-old Sikh extremist. Hayer was paralyzed and wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.

It was against this backdrop of violence and suspicion that Johal and his friends—primarily drawn from Vancouver's large Sikh community—sold drugs, broke into cars and committed other petty crimes in a loosely tied group. Many of them attended Tupper and had been involved in a gang with ties to the newly emerging gang that had previously been called “Los Diablos.” Originally mostly Hispanic, Los Diablos became increasingly multiethnic, especially after much of its original leadership had been arrested or deported. At the time Johal arrived on the scene, the gang had become almost entirely Indian, mostly Sikh, and was by then more widely known as the Indo-Canadian Mafia or the Punjabi Mafia.

The Indo-Canadian Mafia split into factions when one of its regional leaders, Jimsher “Jimmy” Singh Dosanjh, was charged with the October 14, 1991, murder of Colombian cocaine trafficker Teodoro Salcedo. Jimmy was eventually acquitted due to a lack of people willing to testify against him, but while he was behind bars, Johal assumed leadership of his men. Johal and his friends made money not just by drug trafficking, but also by exporting stolen car parts and selling goods, mostly electronics, stolen from transport trucks, often with the cooperation of the trucks' drivers. A CBC documentary at the time estimated that Johal was making about $4 million a year. He was as flamboyant as he was temperamental, and his regular appearances on local media angered many in the Lotus Gang, who had a history of cooperation with Jimmy Dosanjh and Los Diablos, but were not impressed by the mercurial Johal.

One of Johal's friends, a 21-year-old named Parminder Chana, was driving home at about nine o'clock on the evening of October 11, 1991, when he received a call from a mutual non-Sikh friend, Faisel (also reported as Faizal) Ali Dean. Dean told him to meet him at the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia's salvage yard in New Westminster right away. Chana worked there as a night security guard and frequently used it as a spot to meet with friends and make deals.

When he arrived, he saw Dean and another old friend, Rajinder “Little Raj” Benji. Chana was surprised to see Benji, as the two had experienced something of a falling out since Chana had started dating Benji's 17-year-old sister Kulwinder (better known as “Jassy”). As soon as he was close enough, Dean wrestled Chana to the ground and held him down. Police said Benji loomed over Chana, then produced a knife. Law enforcement officials allege that Benji began berating Chana for going out with his sister, then repeatedly slashed and stabbed him, eventually cutting off all of his fingers before slashing his throat. The two men then carried the body to a nearby drainage ditch and threw him in the water. He had been cut 54 times.

Four days later, Jassy leapt to her death into the Fraser River from the Pattullo Bridge that connects New Westminster and Surrey. She left behind a note that read “When Parmar died, I died.”

Benji was quickly arrested for Chana's murder, and so was Dean after someone overheard him bragging about holding the victim down while Chana was sliced up. At the trial, it was determined that the Benjis had been a law-abiding family in northern British Columbia until the father died, an older sister ran away from home never to be heard from again, and the family moved to Vancouver. Soon “Little Raj” and his older brother—also named Rajinder, and known as “Big Raj”—were both involved with the Indo-Canadian Mafia, selling drugs and committing other small-time crimes. Little Raj admitted at a trial for another matter that he not only sold cocaine, but also had a network of dealers and drivers in the area—and that Dean was one of them. It was also revealed that Little Raj had three previous convictions for armed robbery in which he had threatened to kill his victims (one of them a 5-year-old boy) if they went to police.

In December 1991, the body of Sanjay Narain—a 21-year-old who many believe witnessed the Chana murder—was found at the bottom of North Vancouver's Cleveland Dam. After that, no witnesses dared testify against Jimmy, and he was acquitted. Dean, however, had already implicated himself and was found guilty of second-degree murder.

When Jimmy Dosanjh was released from jail, he was disturbed to learn that his men now answered to Johal. He was so upset, in fact, that he hired a man to kill Johal. But the assassin instead went to Johal, told him of Jimmy's plan, and cut a deal with Johal. For a little more money, they agreed, the assassin would kill Jimmy instead. On February 25, 1994, the double-crossing assassin told Jimmy that he had some stolen electronics he wanted to sell him, lured him into an Eastside alley, and shot him dead.

Jimmy's brother, Ranjit “Ron” Dosanjh swore revenge—on camera. Highly political, Ron had been president of the Vancouver Chapter of the International Sikh Youth Federation, and as a strong supporter of an independent Khalistan, he was suspected of ordering the assassination attempt on prominent Sikh Bakhar Singh Dhillon for speaking out against political violence. Years of experience had made him something of a slick operator. So it came as a surprise to many when he told a television reporter that if Johal came to his house, he would “shoot him between the eyes.” Johal fired back, also in front of TV cameras, saying, “Basically, I just want these guys to know you got another thing coming, bitch. I'm still here.”

In a strange twist, the “thing coming” was a bullet between the eyes. During the afternoon rush hour on April 19, 1994, Ron Dosanjh was sitting in his customized red pickup waiting at a stoplight on the Kingsway when a car pulled up beside him. The passenger in the car pulled out an AK-47 and shot him in the face. Dead, Ron Dosanjh's foot fell from the brake pedal, and the pickup lurched into oncoming traffic. As other drivers screeched to avoid it, the truck kept rolling up onto the sidewalk until it collided with a tree.

Johal was questioned by police and released. On April 24, 1994, a neighbor of Johal's, Yukon native Greg Olson, agreed to walk his landlord's dog in a nearby park. While with the dog, Olson was shot and killed. It was later revealed that the gunmen mistook him for Johal, who was about the same size and age, and wore similar clothing.

The next day, during Ron Dosanjh's cremation service, police announced that Johal was under arrest for Jimmy's murder. Also charged were Preet “Peter” Sarbjit Gill, Rajinder “Big Raj” Benji, Sun News Lal, Michael Kim Budai and Ho-Sik “Phil” Kim, who was alleged to be the triggerman.

At the trial, the Crown alleged that Johal had paid Kim $30,000 to kill Ron Dosanjh because Johal had heard that Ron Dosanjh was going to kill him to avenge his brother Jimmy. Despite what was then the longest criminal trial in Canadian history, the accused were all acquitted, much to the surprise of many in the media.

A few months after the verdict, a Vancouver police officer who had been involved in the case saw Gill dancing at a nightclub with one of the jurors, Gillian Guess. Suspicious, the police initiated surveillance on Guess and recorded phone conversations in which she admitted having a romantic affair with Gill while sitting on the jury of his murder trial.

Guess was charged with obstruction of justice—in fact, it was the first time in North American history that a juror had been caught sleeping with an accused murderer on trial—while Gill, Budai and Kim were ordered to be retried. Guess went out of her way to engage the media and public, and even set up a website for her fans, but was found guilty and received an 18-month prison term. Gill was not retried for murder but was sentenced to six years for his role in the obstruction scandal.

While in jail awaiting trial, Johal met and befriended a man named Bal Buttar. Johal assessed the 150-pound Buttar and started feeding him steroids and encouraging him to work out. Soon, Buttar was a 250-pound monster, able and willing to knock out just about anyone. The two became so close, in fact, that Johal offered Buttar a leadership role in the Indo-Canadian Mafia. Buttar recalled to a reporter, “When I was in jail with Bindy, Bindy told me, ‘You are going to be the one underneath me. You listen to me. If you take care of things at your end, I'll be happy with you, brother. If you fuck me over, I'll kill you. Right?'” He then told Buttar about a crew he had assembled called the Elite. They were five Indo-Canadian Mafia members whose job it was to assassinate Johal's enemies.