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