2009 Vancouver Gang War - Progress and Escalation

Progress and Escalation

By the end of the first quarter of 2009, more than 20 people had been killed and 40 wounded. The Hells Angels had primarily stayed out of the fighting up to this point while the IS gang was busy trying to protect its turf from the resurgent Buttar Gang after police in April 2009 functionally dismantled the rival Sanghera Crime Group after a series of arrests which created a vacuum allowing the Buttar gang to expand its operations and encroaching on the IS for its marijuana monopoly.

But most of the wounded and killed had been members of the Red Scorpions and UN gangs who were engaged in a brutal tit-for-tat turf war. The carnage between the UN and the Red Scorpions was believed to stem from the fatal shootings of six men in an apartment in the suburb of Surrey in 2007. Dozens of other slayings followed, many of them retribution killings and commercial disputes between the UN and the associated members of the Red Scorpions, the Bacon brothers who used to be members of the UN gang. But the conflict between these gangs escalated dramatically after the UN gang along with the IS gang decided to move into the cocaine trade, a long domain of the Red Scorpion gang.

After initially failing to announce that they had a gang war on their hands, on March 6, 2009, the Vancouver police announced there is a gang war after making several arrests. In particular they have gone after the leadership of the UN and Red Scorpion gangs and closely monitoring the Bacon Brothers after they survived a rash of hits against them. In May, police arrested eight senior U.N. members, including the leader, Iraqi immigrant Barzan Tilli-Choli, on charges of conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers while, Dennis Karbovanec a member of the Red Scorpions pled guilty to previous crimes. Since the arrest of the leadership, there has been a drop in violence but occasional violence does continue.