Three years in prison for a revenge shooting at the height of Calgary’s gang war apparently haven’t reformed Vinh Tung Truong, who has instead used the time behind bars to re-acquaint himself with gangsters from the FOB Killers.
Yet, despite that troubling appraisal from authorities, Truong will be back on the streets in a matter of days on statutory release, which is mandated by law when offenders reach the two-thirds mark of their sentence.
“You have been actively involved in the institutional subculture and have been involved in the muscling/intimidation of other inmates. You have demonstrated that you are stepping out as the gang has become increasingly active within the institutional subculture,” the Parole Board of Canada wrote in a recent assessment of Truong, who will be freed in mid-February.
“Rather than making positive progress, you have regressed.”
Without grounds to keep Truong in prison past his legally-mandated release date, the parole board imposed a condition requiring him to live under a nightly curfew at a halfway house.
“The board cannot conclude your risk would be manageable in the community when you were unmanageable under the strict structure and supervision of an institution,” the board wrote.
Truong, 33, was a participant in one of the bloodiest chapters of the deadly, decade-long war between the FOB gang and the rival FOB Killers (FK), which was responsible for at least 25 Calgary-area homicides between 2002 and 2009.
On Dec. 31, 2007, a gunman killed veteran FK gang member Mark Kim in a downtown alley, shortly after he left a scheduled appointment with his probation officer. At about 7:30 p.m. the same day, Truong was one of two men who opened fire on two FOB gang figures, Matthew Chubak and Tyler MacDonald, as they sat in an SUV parked on a residential street in northwest Calgary.
Police charged Truong in connection with the shooting following a lengthy investigation that began when he showed up at a Vancouver hospital the next day seeking treatment for a gunshot wound he suffered when Chubak and MacDonald returned fire. Truong had associates drive him to Vancouver — where he first tried to arrange off-the-books medical treatment from associates in the notorious UN gang — because he was afraid of being targeted by enemies if he went to a Calgary hospital.
Calgary police eventually matched blood recovered from the shooting scene to Truong and, in 2012, he pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm to endanger life and received a six-year sentence.
At the time of sentencing, Truong’s lawyer told court he had distanced himself from gang associates and had “gone straight” by working in landscaping and the restaurant business prior to his arrest.
However, the parole board said after being transferred to a medium-security institution, he requested placement in a cellblock that houses known gang members. The parole board documents didn’t disclose where Truong is being held, but FK members and associates placed in medium security are usually sent to Drumheller Institution, while FOB figures are customarily placed in Bowden Institution to keep the two gangs apart.
In Oct. 2014, Truong’s behaviour had deteriorated to the point where he was placed in segregation and there was a recommendation that he be transferred to a stricter institution.
“You can no longer be managed in a medium (security) environment and should be reclassified for higher security,” the parole board wrote, quoting a report from the institution’s security intelligence officer.
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A jailhouse picture showing a former Calgary man posing with an assortment of gangsters played a role in undermining his bid to avoid living in a halfway house when he gets out of prison.
Anthony William Beare told authorities he has renounced the criminal ties that landed him a 9½-year sentence for weapons and drug offences, but the Parole Board of Canada said a recent snapshot showing Beare with bikers, a Mafioso and a leader of B.C.’s notorious Red Scorpions gang demonstrates otherwise.
“A picture taken in late July 2015 shows you surrounded by members of the Hells Angels, as well as the Italian organized crime … gang member and the leader of the Red Scorpion street gang,” the parole board wrote in a recent review of Beare’s file.
Beare, 36, was convicted of 14 offences stemming from a cache of illegal guns, homemade pipe bombs, ammunition and drugs police found inside his home near Calgary in 2008. At the time, he was part of an emerging group that called itself the 403 Soldiers, which had aligned itself with Calgary’s FOB gang.
A decade-long war between FOB and the rival FOB Killers (FK) was responsible for at least 25 homicides in the Calgary area between 2002 and 2009. In addition to the drugs and weapons, investigators who raided Beare’s home also found an internal police document that contained the names and pictures of several FK members.
Just 10 days after the raid on Beare’s home, the FOB gang killed three people — including FK member Sanjeev Mann — at the Bolsa restaurant in southeast Calgary. Real Christian Honorio, who was arrested in the raid at Beare’s home, is awaiting trial on three charges of first-degree murder in connection with the Bolsa killings.
The parole board was reviewing Beare prior to him being set free later this week on statutory release, which is mandated by law for federal offenders at the two-thirds mark of their sentence.
In earlier reviews of Beare’s file, the parole board noted he had taken steps to distance himself from any gang associations while in prison, including having several tattoos removed. In 2013, parole records stated Beare had been beaten and faced threats for renouncing his gang ties.
But the photo of Beare posing with gang members cast doubt on his sincerity and the parole board imposed a condition forcing Beare to live in a halfway house.
“You consider that putting you in a halfway house will be counterproductive to your life and will make you a target. You write that you have cut ties with ‘all friends and associates’ from your past and that you are a changed person,” the parole board wrote.
“The board is unable to see that your criminal values have shifted toward more acceptable and prosocial values. Considering this and the seriousness of your illegal activities, the board must exercise extreme caution around your release back into the community.”
The parole board document didn’t disclose Beare’s destination, but he is originally from the Maritimes and the plan he submitted to authorities proposed living with his wife or his father. The parole board stated the local “regional police” force opposes Beare’s release in their jurisdiction. Halifax has the area’s only regional police force.
]]>Police are trying the power of persuasion to end the spate of drug-related shootings on city streets.
While dialogue isn’t a replacement for arresting gangsters and drug dealers, the tactic has succeeded before in quelling violent conflicts between criminal groups — notably a gang feud that ended in a police-brokered truce in 1992.
Police said the latest spate of violence involves as many as 100 loosely-affiliated young men who have been responsible for dozens of shootings during the first six months of 2015 — many of them drug-related and many in the city’s northeast quadrant.
Investigators revealed this week they’re considering ways of convincing the combatants in the most recent violence to come to a truce, while stressing those efforts won’t take precedence over prosecuting them for the drug dealing and criminal activities that are sparking the gunfire.
“We’re not giving anyone a free pass, by any means,” said Sgt. Jason Walker of the guns and gangs unit.
The tactic is premised on convincing criminals that shooting at each other in public and endangering bystanders will bring even more police pressure to bear on their illegal rackets. It may sound incongruous for police to speak so candidly to gangsters about their criminal activity, but Walker said it has a pragmatic purpose: hoping the profit motive that drives organized crime can persuade the sides to put aside whatever is behind the violence.
“We’re always looking to do what we can to maximize public safety,” Walker said.
“One of our messages to these guys is that if you deal drugs, you will find your way onto our radar screen. But if you want to get on our dance card even more quickly, do something that threatens public safety.”
That appeal to self-interest hasn’t always worked: a decade-long war between the FOB gang and a breakaway faction known as the FOB Killers (FK) was sparked by personal animosity between former criminal associates that grew into deep-seated hatred as the two groups became locked in a cycle of deadly revenge attacks.
The FOB-FK war was responsible for at least 25 homicides between 2002 and 2009 and only came to an end after lengthy and costly police investigations succeeded in locking up many of the key players responsible for the bloodshed. A key turning point came in 2009, when three FOB figures entered the Bolsa Restaurant on New Year’s Day and killed Keni Su’a, a bystander who fled the establishment after the gunmen killed FK member Sanjeev Mann and drug dealer Aaron Bendle.
Walker said investigators have had many opportunities to talk to gang members involved in the FOB-FK conflict, who say they now realize the feud and Su’a’s murder played a role in their undoing by galvanizing the public and sparking an unprecedented mobilization of police resources against them.
“We know first-hand, from talking to these people, that they wish they had never gone down that path,” said Walker.
An incident similar to the Bolsa killings in the 1990s helped police bring the Devil Boys gang and a rival group to the table to negotiate a truce. The turning point came in July 1992, when gangsters who mistook an innocent man for a Devil Boys member shot him at a Chinatown restaurant.
Peter Copple, a former gang investigator who retired at the rank of deputy chief in 2001, said the shooting prompted people in the community to begin co-operating with police. When sources told investigators the two sides were arming themselves and recruiting reinforcements from out of town, police pre-emptively clamped down on both sides and offered a safe place for them to negotiate.
After three meetings — each surrounded by a heavy police presence — the two sides agreed to cease the violence.
“It’s not a common tactic, and it’s not that easy,” said Copple, who is now a consultant specializing in justice issues.
Although police haven’t taken such elaborate steps to deal with the current violence, Walker said they’d consider it.
“We’re not beyond going that route if we deem it necessary,” he said.
]]>Convicted drug trafficker and gangster Dustin Duke Darby is set to be released from prison in the spring, but it’s unlikely his family will have to tidy the guest bedroom.
Darby, 31, is scheduled to be freed in April on statutory release — which is mandated by law for offenders at the two-thirds mark of their sentences — but police plan to immediately take him back into custody on charges arising from several murders connected to the FOB gang.
Although Darby’s 71/2 year sentence for trafficking eight kilograms of cocaine and possessing two loaded handguns is winding down, he was charged last year with two counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, participation in a criminal organization and accessory to murder after the fact.
“On his statutory release date, he will be transferred from a correctional facility to a remand facility. That’s pretty standard when we have these types of things,” said Insp. Cliff O’Brien of the Calgary Police Service.
Remand centres hold people accused of crimes while they await trial. Darby will have the right to apply for bail, but the seriousness of the charges means any application would be heard in the province’s superior court, Queen’s Bench.
The chances of Darby getting bail are remote, and O’Brien said police have safeguards in place to ensure they’re notified when someone facing serious charges is due to get out of prison.
“Certainly, the police and corrections will work together to make sure we don’t have somebody released unwittingly,” O’Brien said.
The unusual situation was created by the intersection of two processes involving two decision-makers: the Parole Board of Canada and the courts.
Federal corrections legislation states that all offenders not serving a life sentence are entitled by law to release at the two-thirds mark of their sentences. The aim of the law is to ease a convict’s re-adjustment to life outside prison, while at the same time keeping them under supervision until their sentence expires.
The Correctional Service of Canada has the authority to ask the parole board to keep someone behind bars for the entire sentence, but the measure is relatively rare and reserved for offenders considered the worst of the worst.
In Darby’s case, he had only a minor conviction for failing to comply with an undertaking prior to his current conviction for drug and weapons offences and a mostly unblemished record behind bars. The parole board also noted Darby had completed one year of welding training and had “positive supports” and a place to stay with family members.
However, the parole board wasn’t able to factor the new charges — as serious as they are — into its decision-making process because they’re unproven.
“The board is not in a position to render a decision of guilt or innocence on an outstanding charge,” said Gary Sears, the Parole Board of Canada’s deputy director general for the Prairie region.
In the absence of any legal authority to continue holding Darby, the parole board imposed conditions requiring him to seek or maintain employment and to avoid contact with gang associates.
Darby is one of several FOB figures accused of first-degree murder in connection with two crimes that came during the height of a bloody war with the rival FOB Killers (FK): the killing of Kevin Anaya in 2008 and the triple slaying of three men at the Bolsa Restaurant on New Year’s Day 2009.
Anaya, 21, wasn’t a gang member but had friends on both sides when someone shot him outside a home on Marcombe Drive N.E. in August 2008. Darby, along with three other veteran FOB figures, have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Five months later, gunmen burst into the Bolsa Restaurant and killed FK member Sanjeev Mann, 22, Aaron Bendle, 22, a friend of Mann’s who was a cocaine dealer, and restaurant patron Keni Su’a, 43, a bystander shot when he ran from the eatery.
The additional charge against Darby of participation in a criminal organization is in connection with the Bolsa case.
The war between FOB and FK was responsible for at least 25 homicides between 2002 and 2009.
]]>If there’s any doubt Calgary’s FOB and FK gangs still harbour a murderous hatred for each other, consider the case of Danny Nguyen .
Nguyen, 26, recently got out of prison on statutory release and was ordered by the Parole Board of Canada to live at a halfway house until the end of his sentence next February.
It’s not unusual for the parole board to order offenders to stay at a halfway house instead of a living at private residence if they want to impose a greater degree of supervision. It’s also not unusual for convicts to oppose the residency requirement — as Nguyen did.
But Nguyen’s objection is unusual because of his reasons: he fears he’ll be a sitting duck for rival gang members out to kill him. It’s not an unfounded fear, considering Nguyen was pulled out of a halfway house after only three days when authorities received information about a threat against him last fall.
Authorities sent Nguyen back to prison for his own protection, but he is past the two-thirds mark of his sentence and authorities are legally obligated to release him again. With few exceptions, the law mandates that federal offenders must serve the final third of their sentence under supervision in the community.
Nguyen wanted to live with his common-law girlfriend, but according to parole records officials turned down that plan because “she was not considered a positive community support.” (Considering she was shot in the neck in a gang-related drive-by 2008, authorities must have decided living with her wasn’t enough of a step away from gangster life for their liking.)
The parole board decided the best way to keep Nguyen out of trouble was to place him in a halfway house, where his keepers can monitor his comings and goings and weigh whether he is complying with conditions banning him from consuming drugs and alcohol and associating with other gang members.
Unfortunately for Nguyen, the structured environment of a halfway house also gives people who want to kill him a chance to observe and learn his daily routines. The parole board responded to this concern by saying correctional staff are well-equipped to ferret out threats and respond to them.
Time will test that theory, but there’s no doubt the parole board believes the threat of violence against Nguyen is real: I was originally approved to observe his parole hearing, but at the last minute the board revoked its permission. I’ve covered too many hearings to count in the past 12 years, and that’s the only time I’ve seen the parole board exclude the media.
The section of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act cited by the parole board — 140(5) — is broad, but I’d guess their decision had something to do with ensuring I didn’t hear any information about Nguyen’s intended destination. Although that information is routinely blacked out of the board’s written decisions, it often comes up during hearings. Unlike the courts, the parole board doesn’t have the ability to impose publication bans on information that comes out during hearings, so the only alternative would have been to bar the media entirely. Thankfully, it’s a rare occurrence — from a reporter’s perspective, at least. But it’s also stark evidence FOB and FK remain violent threats that are only being kept in check by long prison sentences and the constant vigilance of authorities.
]]>The long arm of the law is closer to reaching more of the culprits responsible for the violence that killed at least 25 people and endangered countless others during a gang war that raged on Calgary streets between 2002 and 2009.
Tomorrow, lawyers will make sentencing submissions in the case of FOB Killers (FK) gang member Vinh Tung Truong, who was convicted in October for a shooting that targeted two rivals in revenge for the murder of FK veteran Mark Kim on Dec. 31, 2007.
As that case draws to a conclusion, investigations into a trio of killings that happened at the height of the violence appear to be closing in on suspects.
Last week, police released images of a car believed to be involved in the shooting death of Kevin Anaya in August 2008. Two gunmen shot Anaya, 21, as he got out of his vehicle in front of a friend’s house on Marcombe Drive N.E. Anaya wasn’t a gang member, but knew people on both sides of the conflict. Over the years, sources have told me he was targeted by FOB.
Police followed the development in Anaya’s case with a public appeal to help identify two men linked to the killings of Kevin Ses and Tina Kong in Oct. 2008. Someone shot Ses and Kong, who were both 21, as they ate at the Food In East restaurant on Marlborough Drive N.E. Neither were gang members, but Ses knew people in FK and was friends with Mark Kim. At the height of the gang war, that was enough to mark Ses for death; Kong paid the ultimate price for nothing more than sharing a meal with him.
Investigators haven’t said much about what’s behind this recent progress, other than people have become more comfortable about coming forward as the years pass.
“Over time, people’s circumstances change, which is why we don’t give up on these files,” Staff Sgt. Grant Miller of the homicide unit said in an interview.
No doubt new information from the public helped police realize, four years later, that otherwise innocuous surveillance footage from a nearby convenience store held the images of two men likely involved in the shootings of Kong and Ses.
But it’s also interesting to note both the Anaya and Kong/Ses killings involve people targeted because of their connections to FK — making it more than likely FOB is behind them.
FOB was also responsible for the triple slaying at the Bolsa Restaurant on New Year’s Day 2009 — a fact that emerged during the trials of Real Christian Honorio, Michael Roberto and Nathan Zuccherato, who were each convicted of first-degree murder for shooting FK member Sanjeev Mann, his friend Aaron Bendle and innocent bystander Keni Su’a. (As the linked article states, the convictions are under appeal.)
Prosecutors relied on evidence gathered during Operation Synchronicity, a massive investigation that involved a confidential informant inside FOB and used undercover officers in a so-called “Mr. Big” sting to elicit incriminating statements from an unwitting Honorio.
Did Synchronicity yield evidence that pointed investigators toward the men who killed Anaya, Kong and Ses? Miller says the probe helped in moving those cases forward, but police still need more information before they can lay charges — hence the public appeals in recent days.
“We’re not there yet,” he says.
What’s also interesting is that public appeals, as a tactic, sometimes carry the risk of prompting a suspect to flee or go underground. For whatever reason, investigators decided the potential benefits outweigh that risk. Could it be because the prime suspects are already behind bars? Miller isn’t saying — but with many key members of FOB already in prison for other crimes, it’s something to keep in mind.
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]]>Even in a bloody conflict responsible for killing at least 25 people — some of them innocent bystanders — Dec. 31, 2007 stands out for its violence.
The day started with the killing of veteran FOB Killers (FK) gang member Mark Kim in a downtown alleyway and ended with two FK gunmen firing nearly 20 shots at two rival FOB figures on a residential street in Sandstone. The targets, Matthew Chubak and Tyler MacDonald, weren’t hit, but one of them managed to fire back and wound one of the FK gunmen, Vinh Tung Truong.
A third shooting that afternoon in Forest Lawn has never been solved but is more than likely connected. At about 3:40 p.m., someone fired several shots in the parking lot of the Little Saigon mall at 4909 17th Avenue S.E. When police arrived, all that was left were two shot-up vehicles. Given what happened to Kim earlier that day and what transpired later, it’s a good bet the Forest Lawn shooting is connected.
When Truong, 30, pleaded guilty Monday to shooting at Chubak and MacDonald, the evidence that came out in court briefly opened the door on the world the gangsters live in.
At its most basic, the events of Dec. 31, 2007 embody the swift retribution and casual violence that was common at the height of the gang war. However, more interestingly, the episode offers a rare glimpse of the relationship between FK and one of the B.C. Mainland’s most notorious crime groups at that time, the United Nations gang.
Police in Calgary have acknowledged the ties between FK and the UN for a long time, but the case — along with reporting by the Vancouver Sun’sKim Bolan , an authoritative chronicler of the Lower Mainland’s gang scene — shows the alliance in action.
Evidence entered in support of Truong’s guilty plea states after he was wounded while shooting at Chubak and MacDonald, he showed up at Vancouver General Hospital seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his left hip area. Truong initially told Vancouver police he was wounded at a rave in Vancouver, but later admitted he was shot in Calgary.
It’s not like gang members to be so forthcoming with police, so why did Truong and his story break down so easily?
An article written by Bolan in 2009 connects the dots: police wiretaps at the time captured UN gang leader Clay Roueche calling a naturopath, seeking off-the-books medical treatment for Truong.
Here are details of voicemails Roueche left for Dr. Jonas LaForge, from Bolan’s article:
Roueche eventually reached LaForge, but not before someone resorted to taking Truong to the hospital — a fateful decision that got authorities involved and gave them grounds to get a blood sample that eventually tied him to the Calgary shooting.
With Roueche and several key UN players behind bars , it’s an open question how much of a force the gang remains in B.C.’s underworld. FK has a share of its own members in prison , but at least two — Michael Oduneye and Marcel Lanrdy — appeared headed to the West Coast, where they would remain under community supervision until their sentences expire next year. (Their actual whereabouts aren’t disclosed in parole documents made available to the media.)
Many FOB and FK members have told authorities they want to finish their sentences in other provinces, presumably to get out of the gang life. Given the relationship between FK members and gangsters in the Lower Mainland, one has to wonder about the sincerity of anyone heading to Vancouver.
]]>With no killings between FOB and FK in nearly three years and the biggest case of them all — the 2009 triple murder at Bolsa Restaurant — resulting in at least two convictions, it would be tempting to assume all is quiet on Calgary’s gang front. That assumption would be wrong.
As detailed in a recent article , no small amount of effort goes into monitoring the gang members who aren’t either dead or in jail to prevent any further violence. However, we live in a society that values quantifiable results: while it’s easy to tally the number of bad guys who have been arrested, the amount of drugs seized or illegal guns taken off the street, it’s much harder to measure how many murders police may have prevented. It has happened, however, and only continued pressure will keep the violence in check.
But that’s not the only unfinished business for Calgary police : there are at least 20 homicides connected to the gang war which remain unsolved — investigations police have been able to devote more time to, thanks to the relatively low number of homicides recorded in Calgary during 2011.
Prior to the Bolsa massacre, when innocent restaurant patron Keni Su’a was slaughtered trying to flee the eatery, it was common for Calgarians to be indifferent to the death toll as long as gangsters kept killing each other. Bolsa exposed the fundamental flaw in that indifference: allow criminals with little regard for human life to run loose and it’s only a matter of time before an innocent is hurt or killed.
The public may not be clamouring for police to solve the murders of 20 people who were either gangsters or people who made the poor choice of hanging out with criminals, but Bolsa demonstrated why all Calgarians have a vested interest in getting their killers off the street.
For homicide investigators, an unsolved case is a case that needs solving — no matter if the victim was a criminal himself.
“We are looking at cold case homicides, and included in that is, of course, are all the organized crime ones,” Staff Sgt. Grant Miller of the homicide unit said recently.
“We’re motivated to solve them.”
We live in a country where the rule of law is supreme, and it dictates justice must be available to all — justice that’s meted out in a courtroom, not at the end of the barrel of a gun.
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