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UN Gangsters plead guilty to conspiracy

Many Langley connections to gang warfare in 2008 and 2009 that was the subject of charges.

Five UN gangsters have pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill the Bacon brothers in 2008 and 2009.

Barzan Tilli-Choli, Karwan Ahmet Saed, Ion Kroitoru, Yong Sung John Lee and Dilun Heng entered the pleas on Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

Sentencing will take place at a later date.

The five had also been charged with the first-degree murder of Langley’s Jonathan Barber, who was gunned down in May 2008 in Burnaby, while driving Jamie Bacon’s vehicle to have some stereo equipment installed, and the attempted murder of Barber’s girlfriend Vicky King, who was following in a separate vehicle.

Those charges are being stayed by the Crown.

At the time of the conspiracy, the UN Gang and the Red Scorpions — to which the Bacons were aligned — were embroiled in a war for control of the Fraser Valley drug trade.

The five were among eight people charged in January 2011 with conspiring to kill the Bacon brothers — Jamie, Jarrod and Jonathan — in the period from Jan. 1, 2008 to Feb. 17, 2009.

Co-accused Conor D’Monte and Cory Vallee have been at large since the charges were announced. Both are also wanted in connection with the Feb. 6, 2009 murder of Red Scorpion Kevin Leclair at a Walnut Grove shopping mall.

Dan Russell had his case severed from the others and pleaded guilty in April of this year to the conspiracy charges and to manslaughter in Barber’s death. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Tilli-Choli is also facing charges in a drive-by shooting of Tyler Willock of Langley, which took place in February, 2009 in Surrey. Willock was injured, and later badly beaten by Albert Jackman, who is now in jail after being found guilty of that assault and the murder of Aldergrove resident Kyle Barber on March 28, 2009.

During the period of the conspiracy charges, the Bacons were living in Abbotsford.

In May 2008, the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) warned the public that anyone associating with the Bacon brothers was putting their life at risk.

In October of that year, the APD installed video surveillance cameras in the Bacons’ neighbourhood in east Abbotsford.

On Jan. 20, 2009, Jamie Bacon was shot at numerous times in broad daylight at the busy intersection of South Fraser Way and Sumas Way.

He fled in a black Mercedes SL55 and slammed into a stone stairway at the Keg restaurant on West Railway Street, but was not injured.

Jamie is currently in prison, serving a seven-year term on weapons offences while awaiting trail in the Surrey Six murders.

Jarrod is also in prison, serving a 12-year sentence on conspiracy to traffic cocaine. He has appealed that sentence, seeking a lighter term. The Crown has also appealed, saying the term should be longer.

Jonathan was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kelowna in August 2011. Three people have been charged with this murder, but a trial date has not yet been set.

— with files from Monique Tamminga



Vikki Hopes

About the Author: Vikki Hopes

I have been a journalist for almost 40 years, and have been at the Abbotsford News since 1991.
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