Gang wiretaps: UN boss and convicted murderer had prison contact
Clay Roueche took direction from man police believe to be convicted killer Roy Kenshin Lee, who had links to Asian organized crime
Screen grab of Roy Kenshin Lee, from CHCH News story.
Photograph by: Handout , CHCH News
Until Roueche’s arrest last year, the UN boss had regular contact with murderer Roy Kenshin Lee, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit says in documents provided to the U.S. Attorney and obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
Lee has been in jail for more than 20 years after being convicted of first-degree murder in the 1987 death of Robert Borden, a bouncer at a Niagara Falls strip club. Borden was stabbed 37 times with two daggers by a man in a Ninja outfit while he lay asleep in bed with a stripper.
Lee, now 45, was also sentenced to seven years for conspiring to have a fellow inmate’s wife murdered. The killing was never carried out. And he got a three-year sentence for a Toronto jewelry store robbery in which a woman was smashed in the head with a hammer.
In recent years, Lee has been held in B.C. institutions, where Roueche was a regular visitor until his own run-ins with the law began in May 2008.
And Roueche spoke by cellphone three times on Feb. 23, 2008 with a man police believe to be Lee while Lee was incarcerated at Matsqui Institution, the documents filed in Seattle say. Lee, who was also on a cellphone, said he could only talk for a few minutes and thanked Roueche “for the Christmas present.”
Roueche told Lee he was rounding people up “and they are all putting in stuff.”
Lee, who called Roueche “brother,” said, “I really need it because the things are purchased and I’m in the red.”
“I didn’t go high end and it ran me twenty-two,” Lee said in the intercepted call, made at 7:44 p.m.
The two talked in code, using nicknames for people like Panda Bear, Weirdo, Fatso, the Mole guy and the Taiwan guy.
Lee asked Roueche if he remembered “when you went for a workout with your big brother?”
Roueche said he remembered.
“Soon we may have to go for another workout with him. There are some things to clarify. It’s very important,” Lee said. “Bro’, about the favour, it needs to be pretty ASAP you know.”
Roueche asked Lee how he was making out with “the other situation.”
“You’re talking about Rumi — we don’t talk much anymore. He got smashed up by his big brother,” Lee said. “As far as the Langley situation, we’ll just chalk it up to a UFC match...so we won’t go too extreme....he will have to pay for his actions.”
Lee told Roueche he would “straighten it out” when he went for the next “work-out.”
“Just remember you and your big brother are Siamese twins,” Lee said.
Roueche received a call from the same cell number an hour later, say the court documents.
Lee told Roueche someone nicknamed “Fatso” is not happy with the UN leader.
“Everything that happened to him is because his girl called 911,” Roueche replied.
Lee said Fatso has now become very close to “the main guy of other two letters.” The documents say that is a reference to the initials of another crime group like the Hells Angels or the Independent Soldiers.
“He said that you better make good on helping him for something owed him f---ing two fifty or something,” Lee said of Fatso.
Roueche said Fatso must be on crack because he actually owes one UN gang member $80,000, and Fatso’s brother owes Roueche $50,000, but “never paid a penny.”
Police documents say Lee placed a third call to Roueche from the same cellphone at 9:13 p.m. Feb. 23.
He told Roueche to “give the French man a call” because Lee wanted “to give him something to do.”
Roueche explained some conflicts he was having and that he was working them out.
Lee said he was concerned about “the Langley guy.”
Roueche reassured Lee that he and the Langley guy “are cool.” “He won’t lie about nothing,” Roueche said. “I knew him since he was 15.”
After police intercepted the calls they believed were coming illegally from inside Matsqui, they approached the Correctional Service of Canada to alert them to Lee’s use of a cellphone.
CSC spokesman Alain Charette said Monday that he couldn’t comment about a specific incident because of privacy laws.
But he said the prisons have implemented a number of measures since February 2008 to combat illegal cellphone access on the inside.
"We have changed a number of procedures at the entrances and at the perimeters," he said. "New technology has been deployed....We have some cellphone detectors as well."
But he admitted that it is "a constant cat-and-mouse game."
Lee has since been transferred to Ferndale minimum security prison in Mission, where he has three years before he is eligible for parole on his life sentence. About three months ago, he was badly beaten by two rival gangsters within the institution, The Sun has learned.
Lee became a cause celebre in legal circles in the 1990s as he fought to be exonerated in the strip club murder. He got the support of James Lockyear, a Toronto lawyer active in the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
They claimed a decade ago that sophisticated new DNA testing on two hairs found at the crime scene would prove Lee innocent.
In fact, in July 2001, the test conducted to prove Lee’s innocence ended up showing the hairs very likely came from him.
The Supreme Court of Canada refused a request for a new trial.
“My position is that we are now left at a dead end in terms of proving Lee’s innocence,’’ Lockyear said at the time. “Unless something fresh comes up, there is nothing further that can be done on this case.’’
The 2001 test, conducted in the United Kingdom, produced the opposite result from one done in 1998 by the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences, which appeared to exclude Lee from being the source of one of the hairs.
“He said that you better make good on helping him for something owed him f---ing two fifty or something,” Lee said of Fatso.
Roueche said Fatso must be on crack because he actually owes one UN gang member $80,000, and Fatso’s brother owes Roueche $50,000, but “never paid a penny.”
Police documents say Lee placed a third call to Roueche from the same cellphone at 9:13 p.m. Feb. 23.
He told Roueche to “give the French man a call” because Lee wanted “to give him something to do.”
Roueche explained some conflicts he was having and that he was working them out.
Lee said he was concerned about “the Langley guy.”
Roueche reassured Lee that he and the Langley guy “are cool.” “He won’t lie about nothing,” Roueche said. “I knew him since he was 15.”
After police intercepted the calls they believed were coming illegally from inside Matsqui, they approached the Correctional Service of Canada to alert them to Lee’s use of a cellphone.
CSC spokesman Alain Charette said Monday that he couldn’t comment about a specific incident because of privacy laws.
But he said the prisons have implemented a number of measures since February 2008 to combat illegal cellphone access on the inside.
"We have changed a number of procedures at the entrances and at the perimeters," he said. "New technology has been deployed....We have some cellphone detectors as well."
But he admitted that it is "a constant cat-and-mouse game."
Lee has since been transferred to Ferndale minimum security prison in Mission, where he has three years before he is eligible for parole on his life sentence. About three months ago, he was badly beaten by two rival gangsters within the institution, The Sun has learned.
Lee became a cause celebre in legal circles in the 1990s as he fought to be exonerated in the strip club murder. He got the support of James Lockyear, a Toronto lawyer active in the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
They claimed a decade ago that sophisticated new DNA testing on two hairs found at the crime scene would prove Lee innocent.
In fact, in July 2001, the test conducted to prove Lee’s innocence ended up showing the hairs very likely came from him.
The Supreme Court of Canada refused a request for a new trial.
“My position is that we are now left at a dead end in terms of proving Lee’s innocence,’’ Lockyear said at the time. “Unless something fresh comes up, there is nothing further that can be done on this case.’’
The 2001 test, conducted in the United Kingdom, produced the opposite result from one done in 1998 by the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences, which appeared to exclude Lee from being the source of one of the hairs.
That result made headlines across Canada as media outlets reported Lee was hoping to get a new trial.
At the time of his arrest, Lee was a drug runner and martial-arts master known in the Niagara Falls underworld as Devil.
How Roueche and Lee hooked up is a mystery to law enforcement.
Roueche, also a student of martial arts, was just a Fraser Valley teenager when Lee first went to jail.
Sgt. Bill Whalen, of CFSEU, said police know Roueche visited Lee regularly in jail.
"To us, it seems like a very mysterious relationship," Whalen said Monday.
But some gang specialists have always believed the UN has close ties to Asian triads operating in B.C.
A senior police officer who worked on the UN gang investigation said the Lee-Roueche relationship goes back to 1997 and the early days of the gang.
“I can tell you that Clay Roueche and Roy Lee have a very, very close relationship, that Clay Roueche was a frequent visitor when Roy Lee was in Matsqui and that during the course of the [CFSEU] investigation, they were in contact by phone a number of times and it was evident that Roy Lee had access to a cellphone while in prison,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.
“And it was apparent that Roueche was reporting to Lee on UN issues outside of prison and Lee was reporting to Roueche on UN issues in prison.”
The UN has no real leader now after the imprisonment of Roueche in the U.S. and the recent arrests in B.C. of other high-ranking UN members like Barzan Tilli-Choli, Dan Russell and Doug Vanalstine.
“I wouldn’t say the UN is dead. They are still a recognized entity,” the officer said.
“But they do not have the strong leadership that they had with Clay Roueche. He was a very charismatic, powerful leader. He was the glue that kept all those diverse ethnic groups together. He was a bit of an anomaly. Here’s this chubby white kid from Sardis who rises to the top of this multinational, multi-ethnic organized crime group. In part because he was such an anomaly, he had the respect that he had.”
kbolan@vancouversun.com
At the time of his arrest, Lee was a drug runner and martial-arts master known in the Niagara Falls underworld as Devil.
How Roueche and Lee hooked up is a mystery to law enforcement.
Roueche, also a student of martial arts, was just a Fraser Valley teenager when Lee first went to jail.
Sgt. Bill Whalen, of CFSEU, said police know Roueche visited Lee regularly in jail.
"To us, it seems like a very mysterious relationship," Whalen said Monday.
But some gang specialists have always believed the UN has close ties to Asian triads operating in B.C.
A senior police officer who worked on the UN gang investigation said the Lee-Roueche relationship goes back to 1997 and the early days of the gang.
“I can tell you that Clay Roueche and Roy Lee have a very, very close relationship, that Clay Roueche was a frequent visitor when Roy Lee was in Matsqui and that during the course of the [CFSEU] investigation, they were in contact by phone a number of times and it was evident that Roy Lee had access to a cellphone while in prison,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.
“And it was apparent that Roueche was reporting to Lee on UN issues outside of prison and Lee was reporting to Roueche on UN issues in prison.”
The UN has no real leader now after the imprisonment of Roueche in the U.S. and the recent arrests in B.C. of other high-ranking UN members like Barzan Tilli-Choli, Dan Russell and Doug Vanalstine.
“I wouldn’t say the UN is dead. They are still a recognized entity,” the officer said.
“But they do not have the strong leadership that they had with Clay Roueche. He was a very charismatic, powerful leader. He was the glue that kept all those diverse ethnic groups together. He was a bit of an anomaly. Here’s this chubby white kid from Sardis who rises to the top of this multinational, multi-ethnic organized crime group. In part because he was such an anomaly, he had the respect that he had.”
kbolan@vancouversun.com
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