Five charged in Calgary FOB gang-style slayings

JASON VAN RASSEL, CALGARY HERALD  07.23.2013

Five men have been arrested in connection with three gang-related shootings.
CALGARY HERALD

Investigators have made arrests in three gang-related shootings that killed six people at the height of a bloody conflict between FOB and FOB Killers. Five men with ties to the FOB gang are facing murder and organized crime-related charges resulting from a long-term police investigation dubbed Desino — the Latin word for “desist.”

The name is meant to evoke a determination to end the violence that has been responsible for at least 25 homicides since 2002, but not an end to the investigation.

Calgary police said Thursday night they’re continuing the hunt for more gang members involved in the bloodshed.

“The operation’s ongoing — we’re not done,” said Insp. Cliff O’Brien of the major crimes section.

“We’re not going to finish until we get all these people.”

The police operation, which began in January 2012, has resulted in charges in two cases that remained unsolved since 2008, as well as charges against two additional men in connection with the infamous Bolsa Restaurant massacre of Jan. 1, 2009.

“These are old homicides, but we’ve never forgotten,” O’Brien said.

The first of the three shootings killed Kevin Anaya, who was gunned down outside a home on Marcombe Drive N.E. on Aug. 8, 2008.

Anaya, 21, wasn’t a gang member, but had friends in both FOB and FOB Killers (FK). The gunmen who killed Anaya had targeted another man, who escaped unhurt.

Police have charged four FOB veterans with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with Anaya’s killing: Nicholas Cypui Chan, 35, his brother, Timothy Chan, 32, Nathan Lawrence Zuccherato, 26, and Dustin Duke Darby, 30.

All of the men charged in connection with the Desino investigation are in custody — except for Timothy Chan, who remains at large. Police said he has ties in Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto.

Calgary police arrested Nicholas Chan downtown on Thursday afternoon.

Zuccherato was previously convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in connection to the Bolsa shootings, but the Alberta Court of Appeal set aside the conviction last month and ordered a new trial.

Darby is serving a 7.5-year federal prison sentence for cocaine trafficking.

The second case involved the shooting of Kevin Ses and Tina Kong, two friends who were killed while eating at the Food In East Restaurant on Marlborough Drive N.E. on Oct. 26, 2008.

Ses, 21, was associated with an FK gang member but Kong, 21, had no connections to criminal activity. The shots seriously wounded two friends with them.

Zuccherato and Van Thoai Luc, 25, have each been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Police in Burnaby, B.C. arrested Luc on Thursday.

The third part of the investigation involved charging two additional suspects — Nicholas Chan and Darby — with first-degree murder in connection with the Bolsa massacre on Jan. 1, 2009.

Gunmen who burst into the restaurant killed FK gang member Sanjeev Mann, 22, Aaron Bendle, 22, who was a friend of Mann’s and a cocaine dealer, and patron Keni Su’a, 43, a bystander shot when he ran from the eatery.

Like Zuccherato, Michael Roberto was also originally convicted of three counts of first-degree murder but has been granted a new trial by the Alberta Court of Appeal.

A third man, Real Christian Honorio, 29, is appealing his conviction on three counts of first-degree murder.

The Bolsa murders were a plot to kill Mann by first kidnapping Bendle and forcing him to arrange a meeting at the restaurant.

Nicholas Hovanesian, 27, was originally charged with first-degree murder in the plot but the charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty instead to kidnapping and accessory to murder after the fact. He is serving a 14-year sentence.

For now, police aren’t revealing what roles Nicholas Chan and Darby allegedly had in the Bolsa killings.

“They played a significant role, otherwise we wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be charging them with first-degree murder,” O’Brien said.

Many cases connected to the FOB-FK conflict went unsolved until a lengthy police probe called Synchronicity made the first arrests in the Bolsa shootings in June 2009.

As elaborate and expensive as that investigation was, there are indications the scale of Desino will surpass it.

The probe involved more than a dozen law enforcement organizations across the country working with investigators drawn from several units of the Calgary Police Service.

“We know on average, a gang-related homicide (investigation) can cost several million dollars,” O’Brien said.

And for the first time, one of those investigations has resulted in police laying charges of instructing a criminal organization and participating in a criminal organization.

Nicholas Chan has been charged with instructing a criminal organization in the Anaya homicide; Darby has been charged with participation in a criminal organization in connection with the Bolsa killings.

“We have in the past been successful in identifying and charging people that have pulled the trigger, but ... because we’ve lacked the co-operation from people, we’ve struggled with identifying and charging those people who have pulled the strings,” said O’Brien.

The Chan brothers were among the first members of FOB. As police first observed the gang in its early days, they used to refer to it internally as the “Chin/Chan group,” after the Chan brothers and the Chin brothers, Roland and Roger.

A faction later split from FOB and became known as the FOB Killers.

Nicholas Chan nearly died in April, when an attacker stabbed him outside a grocery store in the city’s Beltline.

FK member Bill Ly was recently charged with aggravated assault in connection with the attack on Chan.

Border officers arrested Ly, 29, last month in Vancouver as he stepped off a flight from Taiwan.

Despite an ebb in the violence between the gangs — helped by the investigative successes of police — O’Brien said FOB and FK remain active in the city’s criminal underworld and police must stay vigilant.

“Although there are fewer overt acts of violence between these gangs in the city, we know these gangs still exist,” he said,

“We know we’re not done. We still have a lot of work to do.”