B.C.’s long-running gang conflict shifted in 2024 from a battle involving three warring groups to one with two main sides.
B.C.’s long-running gang conflict shifted in 2024 from a battle involving three warring groups to one with two main sides, an officer with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit says.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny said the change has also come with some instability, as a number of independent unaligned gangs are also now operating in the province.
Those gangs will do the dirty work for either side in the conflict, such as taking contracts for murder or transporting and selling drugs, she said.
“I think the biggest thing with the gang landscape is that for a few years, we’ve had sort of that three-sided conflict, and now over this last year, it looks like it’s gone back to more of a two-sided conflict,” Winpenny said.
Between 2022 and the start of 2024, the conflict involved the Wolfpack gang alliance against the Latimer-Kang-Red Scorpion group, also known as BIBO, with the UN gang as the third player opposed to both.
The BIBO group is “now aligned more with the UN over this last year,” Winpenny said. That means Wolfpack and affiliated Brothers Keepers are on one side of the conflict with the UN as their rival “and then you have all those independents that seem to be doing work for whoever.”
Overall, gang violence was down across the region over the last year, though statistics aren’t yet available.
Both Dhaliwal’s brothers, Harb and Menander, were killed in earlier targeted shootings, Herb Dhaliwal in 2021 and Meninder Dhaliwal in 2022. Harb Dhaliwal’s killer pleaded guilty, while the accused in Meninder Dhaliwal’s killing are expected to go to trial in 2025.
D’Monte is expected to go to trial in 2025 on a charge of first-degree murder for the February 2009 slaying of rival Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair, and conspiracy to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon. He has said he is not guilty.
Others linked to the B.C. gang conflict were convicted for serious crimes in 2024, up to and including murder.
Winpenny said B.C. gangs are “obviously very resourceful and bring in new people from other provinces, and establish networks and connections so they are able to profit and do their business in other areas of Canada and internationally.”
She said the Brothers Keepers has expanded aggressively across Canada and “is moving up.”
“The BK is huge in their ability to network with people in other provinces, in an attempt to grow their enterprise.”
The clubhouses in east Vancouver, Kelowna and Nanaimo meant the bikers had fewer places to gather, she said.
“I think it had a pretty big impact on their ride season this last year.”
And CFSEU’s outlaw motorcycle gang unit has continued to keep the pressure on the bikers, “utilizing whatever tool they can to continue with that disruption process, whether it is municipal bylaws or other statutes,” Winpenny said.