Gang related kidnappings in court

The gang related kidnapping from October 2011 involving seven accused including Thomas Crawford, David Tarrant and Veronica Moncur all from Kamloops has come to trial. At the time police reported that "The kidnapping was financially motivated," and that "Some of the individuals we arrested have documented links to the Red Scorpions and Independent Soldiers."

We know Thomas Crawford was connected to the Independent Soldiers which as we know work for the Hells Angels. Once again this shows the Red Scorpions and the IS working together on behalf of the Hells Angles.

Kim Bolan is reporting that “A Vancouver man now in jail in California was kidnapped and threatened with torture and death in October 2011 over missing money he had promised to send to the U.S. Dworkin said that on Oct. 20, 2011, victim Sulaiman Safi was ‘was kidnapped from the Denman Tap House restaurant in Vancouver and taken to Richmond where he was held overnight.’

‘He was tied up and threatened with bodily harm and death. A gun was put to his head and he was threatened that his fingers would be cut off if he did not pay them money,’ Dworkin told Justice Catherine Bruce. Mirhadi’s brother Mohammed was shot to death in North Vancouver in 1997 while he watched Donnie Brasco at a local theatre.”

The case involved $400,000 he agreed to ship to the US for the accused which didn’t arrive at it’s destination. More drug related violence tied to debts owed to the Hells Angels.

Another case of a gang related kidnapping shortly after that one was also tied to the Independent Soldiers. Jesse Margison and Troy McKinnon were accused of kidnapping and torturing a former associate named Robert McMillan. They beat his knees with hammers and cut off his ear and finger storing them in an ice cream carton. The victim refused to testify in that case and the accused walked. His brother Jonathon McMillan was shot to death in December 2007.

In February 2009, Jesse Margison’s girlfriend Brianna Kinnear, 22, was gunned down in a targeted hit in Coquitlam. A few days later, Margison associate Nick Smith was shot to death in a Vancouver basement suite.

Jesse Margison and Troy McKinnon were arrested February 2012 for another kidnapping and assault that occurred on Nov. 23, 2011 in Vancouver. Sam Vu was convicted of kidnapping a UBC student back in April 2006. I’m not sure what the motive was in that kidnapping. Vu’s younger brother Van, who was acquitted in the McMynn kidnapping, was charged with Jesse Margison and Troy McKinnon in the November 2011 kidnapping.

In that case they were charged with kidnapping for an organized crime group, assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. Also charged were Troy Dax McKinnon, Derek James Stephens, John Ross Powers and Cody Alexander Sleigh. Kim Bolan reported on Feb 2012 that Tom McCluskie stated that kidnapping group was connected to the Independent Soldiers.

Jesse Margison was seriously injured in an assault at North Fraser Pre-trial jail on Aug. 12 in which another inmate is alleged to have jumped on his head. He was deemed unfit to stand trial December 2012.

In the Thomas Crawford case involving real estate agent Nazfar Mirhadi, Sulaiman Safi was kidnapped because the $400,000 he agreed to take to the US for the accused didn’t arrive at it’s destination. Kim Bolan previously reported that in 2010 the Royal Bank of Canada and Coast Capital Savings won default judgments against Safi totaling more than $62,000 for unpaid debts.

Coast Capital also named Heat Clothing as a defendant, saying Safi “is employed by or operates” the Surrey-based company. The personal property registry indicates Safi and Heat Clothing are co-holders of a lease for a 2007 Cadillac Escalade. The other debtor on the lease is a company called Kam Transport, whose sole director is full-patch Hells Angel Glen Hehn.