Canada - the United States' friendly neighbor to the north. A nation with an affinity for hockey and saying "sorry" for ostensibly no reason. A country that has produced the equally non-threatening Drake and Jim Carrey. Who would possibly assume that there is a grim undercurrent of bloody gang violence in the frigid provinces above the US border?
In reality, Canada is not without its crime and gang activity. The BC Drug War has produced nearly a decade of savagery and bloodshed in one of North America's most scenic landscapes, and that's not to take anything away from Calgary or Toronto, which also boast criminal organizations that stack up with some of the most brutal around the world.
This list explores some of these gangs, whose levels of brutality are only matched by their range of diversity - from the neo-Nazi White Boy Posse, to a gang literally called the United Nations, Canada offers illicit samplings from a broad and violent spectrum.
The neo-Nazi White Boy Posse is one of Western Canada's most violent and feared gangs. Working out of oil-booming Alberta, the WBP has a uniquely strong consumer base for its ecstasy and cocaine sales, aided by an alleged connection to the notorious Hells Angels.
Skin-headed and steeped in Nazi iconography, the White Boy Posse casts an imposing front to rivals and innocent citizens alike, and they are not averse to casual violence to get a point across. One such recipient of these displays was an innocent mother of four named Lorry Ann Santos, who in September 2012 answered the door of her Saskatchewan home to find three WBP members who promptly shot her dead. The gang had been looking to make in-roads in the province's drug trade, but had shown up at the wrong house, ultimately deciding to kill Santos anyway. The WBP is also known for its affinity for decapitations.
The United Nations gang, as its name would suggest, is a diverse organization with members of several nationalities, including those of Asian, Indian, Iraqi, and European descent. Doing their business mainly in the Vancouver area, the UN is a key player in the Canadian cocaine trade, using their globalist approach to form trade partnerships with violent Mexican cartels (as well as the Hells Angels).
The UN's ties to the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico made them powerful players in Canada, where they were not shy about gunning down rivals in BC's notorious gang war of the late 2000s. However, the UN-Mexican cartel connection was ultimately severed when a cocaine shipment was "lost" and UN member Salih Abdulaziz Sahbaz was subsequently found dead in Mexico, shot execution-style by a .45 caliber firearm. Sahbaz was believed to have been negotiating the gang's debt with the Sinaloa cartel, an outfit not exactly recognized for their sympathy and understanding.
Operating in the British Columbia and Alberta provinces of Western Canada, the Red Scorpions are a drug and arms trafficking outfit known to use extreme violence as a regular business practice. The gang peaked in power in the mid-2000s while fronted by the infamous Bacon Brothers - a period that saw members of the Red Scorpions driving bulletproof cars and wearing stolen RCMP vests, routinely knocking off their competition.
On October 19, 2007, the gang carried out a bloody hit against the rival United Nations gang that would rock British Columbia and come to be known as the Surrey Six Murders. What was meant to be a targeted retaliation against UN members Corey and Michael Lal in the city of Surrey, British Columbia, turned into a massacre, as six people - including two innocent parties - were killed execution-style in the penthouse suite of a luxury apartment complex. These murders, demonstrating a previously unseen brutality for gang violence in the province, are considered one of the primary catalysts of the multi-year drug war that proceeded to plague British Columbia.
One of Toronto's most notorious street gangs, the Galloway Boys - also known as the G-Way Boys - were formed in the 1980s in the city's Scarborough area. The gang is a major player in Ontario's drug trade, often strong-arming or silencing competition with quick and brutal violence.
The Galloway Boys' most direct competitor and rival is the Malvern gang, which also operates in Scarborough. As a way of sending a statement to their East Toronto adversaries, on July 16, 2012, the G-Way Boys shot up a community barbeque heavily attended by Malvern members. The attack resulted in two deaths and 23 injuries in what remains the worst mass shooting in Toronto history.
Formed in 2011, the Wolf Pack gang began as an alliance of leaders from the Hells Angels, Independent Soldiers, and the Red Scorpions, designed to be a business merger to sell drugs across Canada. With the idea that an all-star team of gangsters would provide strength in numbers, the Wolf Pack saw the move as a pragmatic one that would offer its members protection from smaller rival organizations.
It didn't quite work out that way. During a meeting between three figureheads of the Wolf Pack in Kelowna, British Columbia, in March 2012, Jonathan Bacon (of the Red Scorpions' Bacon Brothers fame) was killed while his cohorts were severely injured in a surprise ambush. The hit was carried out by a rival unit borrowing a page from the Mexican cartels' playbook - ski masks, a getaway vehicle, and a barrage of bullets from automatic weapons.
The FOB gang formed in Calgary, Alberta, in the late 1990s. Their name being an acronym for "Fresh off the Boat," the FOB started out as a small group of young Asian immigrants peddling small amounts of drugs. Eventually, however, the FOB became one of the province's most criminally prolific and violent organizations, their success spawning a rival gang called the FK - short for "FOB Killers."
The FOB didn't take kindly to such brazenly direct competition and decided to put bounties out on FK members. FOBs would get paid for beating up FKs, with bonus rates kicking in if the rival gang members ended up in the hospital. The real prize, though, was killing an FK, which brought a payment of $20,000. This generous reward was short-lived, however, as so many FOBs cashed in on the bounty that eventually the rate had to be dropped to $10,000.
