Gang violence way down as major players flee B.C. or are jailed: RCMP
Gang-related homicides dropped in 2024 to just 16 from 46 the year before but youth recruitment remains a serious issue
Author of the article:
By Kim Bolan Vancouver Sun September 5, 2025
https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-gang-violence-down-players-gone-jailed
Gang violence in B.C. is at its lowest level in nine years, but youth recruitment remains a serious concern, the head of the province’s anti-gang agency said in an exclusive interview with Postmedia.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Manny Mann, chief of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said that gang-related homicides dropped in 2024 to just 16 from 46 the year before.
And that trend has continued so far this year.
“To the end of June 2025, we recorded the lowest numbers, which are six gang-nexus homicides and eight attempted homicide incidents,” Mann said Thursday.
While the decrease in violence is welcome, there are still major issues police are working to address, he said.
“The most concerning trends are currently related to youth recruitment, illicit commodity diversification and movement — like different precursors, different analogs of drugs and things like that — and gang expansion,” Mann said.
An escalation in the conflict between 2021 and 2023 led to increased enforcement action. While some key players were arrested, others left B.C.
“There have been significant enforcement successes, both by CFSEU and partner agencies that are playing a direct role in suppressing violence,” said Mann. “CFSEU is conducting very focused and intelligence-led investigations on those involved in the B.C. gang conflict.”
Mann said there continues to be two main sides involved in the ongoing conflict — one being the Wolfpack gang and aligned groups such as the Brothers Keepers, and the other the United Nations gang and its allies. In the deadlier period between 2021 and 2023, there were three warring factions.
“A number of gang members are in custody, including some high-ranking members who are central to some past conflicts. A number of gang members have relocated out of province or out of the country,” Mann said.
He said in some cases, funding for special projects has come from the B.C. government’s Provincial Tactical Enforcement Priority Program “which allows agencies to investigate priority individuals they may not have been able to afford otherwise.”
And he said that intelligence sharing between law enforcement agencies has never been better.
“The focused investigative efforts and investigative actions and proactive policing efforts of local police and CFSEU, as well as joint forces operations province wide, on specific gangs … has been a major factor in turning the tide,” Mann said.
Influential Wolfpack gangster Damion Ryan, who is also a B.C. Hells Angel, goes to trial in Manitoba next week on drug smuggling charges. He has also been charged in the U.S. in connection with a foiled murder-for-hire plot.
United Nations gangster Conor D’Monte, a fugitive for 11 years, was captured in Puerto Rico in 2022 and is awaiting trial for the 2009 Langley murder of a Red Scorpion gangster. His next court appearance is Sept. 17, although no trial date has yet been set.
Just last week, a jury convicted gangster Brandon Teixeira of the 2017 murder in Surrey of Nicholas Khabra and the attempted murder of a second person.
Mann noted other recent convictions in both drug trafficking and firearms cases of Brothers Keepers, Wolfpack members, UN gangsters and Hells Angels — all stemming from CFSEU investigations.
As Postmedia has reported, several UN gangsters are now operating out of Vietnam and Dubai. Brothers Keepers gangster Naseem Mohammed, a suspect in a series of B.C. murders, according to U.S. documents, is now believed to be living in Dubai.
Mann said those who have moved overseas want to both insulate themselves from prosecution and avoid getting killed.
But they maintain influence over criminal operations back home through “middle management who are running the criminal operations in B.C. at the direction of those higher-level leaders.”
“B.C.’s major groups, they’re plugged into international networks that give them reach, protection and staying power in that global drug trade,” he said. “So the displacement of those key gang leaders, whether it’s through incarceration or relocation, has also contributed to a decrease in violence, as these individuals are prioritizing making money without attracting undue attention.”
Not only has the anti-gang agency targeted those committing the violence, but has conducted major investigations resulting in recent convictions for drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms production and trafficking, Mann said.
The origins of the current gang conflict date back almost 15 years to a dispute in Abbotsford’s Townline Hill neighbourhood between young drug traffickers. By 2015, Abbotsford Police warned the public about the leaders of two main groups — an offshoot of the United Nations gang versus the then-fledgling Brothers Keepers.
As those involved expanded their illicit business regionally, the conflict also spread until CFSEU declared in April 2023 that it was province-wide in scope.
Mann said the Abbotsford conflict had merged with “a number of other conflicts in the region … and then it certainly advanced.”
CFSEU is continuing to focus on educating kids vulnerable to gang recruitment through its “End Gang Life” program, Mann said. For those in gangs looking for a way out, the gang exiting program has been an effective tool, he added.
“A trend that we’ve seen is the gangs trying to recruit people at a younger age,” he said, by promising them “some glamour, with the hopes of making a lot of money, receiving protection, feeling a sense of belonging.”
But the reality is that “one of two things is going to happen,” Mann said. “These guys are going to either end up in a jail cell or they’re going to end up in a coffin.”
kbolan@postmedia.com