Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jan 2006
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Kim Bolan

POLICE PROBE MURDERED DRUG SMUGGLERS' TIES TO ORGANIZED CRIME

Pair Linked To Lawyer Who Was Jailed For Tampering With A Witness In 
A U.S. Drug Case
Investigators are probing the links between the recent Surrey 
slayings of two criminals who were both involved in a major 
cross-border cocaine-marijuana smuggling ring, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

Gurpreet Singh (Gary) Dhaliwal, gunned down last week, and Inderjit 
Singh (Andy) Rai, murdered last May, were both part of a criminal 
organization that has seen five members busted on both sides of the 
border in the last 18 months.

Both men were named at the Seattle trial of B.C. lawyer Kuldip Singh 
Chaggar last April as having approached Chaggar to ask a jailed gang 
member to change her statement to authorities after she was caught 
entering Canada with $1.5-million worth of cocaine for Dhaliwal's organization.

Chaggar was convicted of witness tampering and is serving a one-year sentence.

Insp. Wayne Rideout, the RCMP officer in charge of the integrated 
homicide investigation team, said police are examining the links 
between Rai and Dhaliwal.

"They are known to each other. Both cases are active IHIT 
investigations. Both are believed to have been involved in organized 
crime," Rideout said Thursday.

After Rai was gunned down, Dhaliwal went to India for an extended 
stay. He returned shortly before he was shot to death in the driveway 
of his Surrey home close to midnight last Friday.

U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said the RCMP contacted his office after 
each of the slayings, given that the men featured prominently in his 
case against Chaggar.

Greenberg said Thursday that witnesses in the Chaggar case testified 
that both Dhaliwal and Rai met repeatedly with Chaggar, who was not 
their lawyer, in the weeks before Chaggar went to a Seattle-area jail 
to visit the 19-year-old woman caught with the cocaine.

Greenberg argued that both Rai and Dhaliwal used Chaggar as a 
"consigliere" -- an adviser -- for their criminal gang because the 
lawyer had the credentials to get into the jail and approach the young woman.

Greenberg said Dhaliwal asked Chaggar to intervene after the drug 
bust and the lawyer "reached out his tentacles to try to keep tabs" 
on what the woman might be telling the prosecution.

"The defendant was the hired-gun of the Dhaliwal organization," Greenberg said.

In one conversation recorded by U.S. authorities, the woman asked 
Chaggar if "Gary" was mad at her and if Dhaliwal or the others would 
do anything to her.

Chaggar chuckled and said: "Gary thinks that his, you know, life is 
on the line because of what is said ... And [another accused] thinks 
he's going to spend 23 years in jail ... It's difficult to know how 
these guys think, right?"

Greenberg said the young woman testified at the trial about the role 
of both Rai and Dhaliwal in the drug gang.

"She testified about who [Rai] was and how he worked with Gary and 
then he gets wacked," Greenberg said.

Dhaliwal, who was 25 when he was murdered, made more than 30 calls to 
Chaggar between the time the cocaine shipment was intercepted July 
16, 2004 and when Chaggar was arrested on the tampering charges two 
months later.

Rai and Dhaliwal had several charges and convictions -- although none 
together -- on trafficking and possession charges over the last five 
years in B.C., according to court records.

The records indicate that neither had used Chaggar as a lawyer for 
recent cases, though Chaggar once acted for Dhaliwal on a 2000 Surrey 
charge of possession of stolen property.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman