There are hundreds of unsolved murders within IHIT jurisdiction, many of them believed to be gang-related over the last 15 years
A specialized team of investigators focused on gang murders is now operational, months after the B.C. government announced the new measure.
The integrated gang homicide team started last week and will work on new murders linked to organized crime, as well as unsolved cases.
Sgt. Freda Fong, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, told Postmedia the new unit was running as of Jan. 13.
She said the gang homicide team will operate within IHIT, though has specialized investigators from the Organized Crime Agency of B.C.
It “will prioritize complex gang-related homicide files which includes unsolved cases, but could also include new deployments,” she said Monday.
There are hundreds of unsolved murders within IHIT jurisdiction, many of them believed to be gang-related over the last 15 years. IHIT investigates homicides across the Lower Mainland except in Vancouver and Delta, and in RCMP-policed communities from Pemberton to Boston Bar, including Sechelt.
High-profile unsolved gang cases include the November 2018 murder of Hells Angel Chad Wilson in Maple Ridge, the Surrey killing of 14-year old Tequel Willis in December 2020, and the March 2022 North Vancouver hit on gangster Milad Rahimi in a busy Superstore parking lot.
Fong said the new team will decide on which unsolved cases to prioritize based on a number of factors including the complexity of a case, it’s solvability and the unit’s capacity.
A case designated complex might have links to other crimes and require advanced investigative techniques to solve, Fong said.
Determining which cases are solvable would include assessing possible witnesses and their willingness to co-operate, other available physical evidence and whether there are new leads to pursue.
The new gang investigators are on top of IHIT’s other 115 employees, which includes 80 police officers and 35 support staff.
A specialized gang homicide unit was one of the recommendations of a 2023 report obtained earlier by Postmedia that was critical of B.C.’s main anti-gang unit, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
The report noted the agency had no responsibility to investigate gang murders, though it had over the years worked with IHIT on successful probes like the 2007 Surrey Six murder investigation, the 2009 slaying of Red Scorpion Kevin LeClair and the 2011 Kelowna murder of his fellow Scorpion, Jonathan Bacon. All resulted in convictions against members of the Red Scorpion and United Nations gangs.
“Formalizing a gang-homicide investigation responsibility for CFSEU, and building the necessary capacity, may benefit the implementation of a more viable gang-suppression strategy in B.C.,” the report said.
The percentage of murders that are gang-related has steadily risen in B.C. from 21 per cent in 2003 to 46 per cent in 2023. As of December 2023, IHIT had 356 unsolved homicide cases.
The new unit was announced last May by then-public safety minister Mike Farnworth, who called it “a top priority for our government.”
“We are continuing to work alongside our policing partners to curb gang violence, and the development of this team is an important step forward in this collective responsibility,” he said at the time.
CFSEU Sgt. Brenda Winpenny told Postmedia last month that gang violence was down in B.C. in 2024.
And she said the B.C.-wide gang conflict had shifted from a battle involving three warring groups to one with two main sides.
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.”