Gangster, killer, escapee: How Robby Alkhalil broke out of a BC jail


There was plenty of evidence the gangster was a high risk of escape and should be held in close detention in jail.

Article content

Days after Wolfpack killer Robby Alkhalil made a spectacular escape from a Port Coquitlam jail in July, two gangsters held at the Surrey Pretrial Centre came close to making their own getaway.

Advertisement 2

Article content

No information about that escape attempt was ever released, but Postmedia has learned the two men were in cells on the second floor of the provincial jail — used to hold people awaiting trial — and used a smuggled tool to cut their way out before they were caught.

Article content

They would have ended up on a roof overhang at the front of the building and been able to easily jump to the ground and run off.

“They were really close,” one source said.

Correctional officers — still shocked by the Alkhalil breakout at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre on July 21 — thought the two incidents must be linked. Surrey RCMP was called in.

Cpl. Vanessa Munn confirmed Dec. 2 that police are investigating a July “incident” at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre, but would not provide any other information nor identify the prisoners.

Advertisement 3

Article content

Shortly after Robby Alkhalil escaped from the North Fraser pretrial jail, there was a close call at the Surrey pretrial jail.
Shortly after Robby Alkhalil escaped from the North Fraser pretrial jail, there was a close call at the Surrey pretrial jail. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

In addition to the foiled escape, Postmedia has uncovered new details of how Alkhalil got away and some of the earlier warning signals that he posed a flight risk.

A top official also expressed concerns about delays in notifying the public about the escape, and offered a theory about what Alkhalil likely did next.

Alkhalil, 35, is Canada’s most wanted man. A $250,000 reward for his recapture has been offered.

Five months after the escape, many questions remain. Why was a sophisticated organized criminal with endless resources and a history of disappearing not watched more closely? And with the second attempted breakout less than a week later, how secure are B.C. jails?

The day after the Alkhalil escape, Melissa Maher, an adviser to Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth, sent an email to Farnworth and other high-level officials about the “key messages” they wanted to get out to the public.

Advertisement 4

Article content

“We take any escape or attempted escape extremely seriously and B.C. Corrections will be conducting a comprehensive review into this incident,” read one of her messages, released under freedom of information legislation.

“We take public safety very seriously. This is a dangerous individual and the public should call 911 immediately should they see this man.”

But when Postmedia filed a freedom of information request for details of escapes and attempted escapes from provincial jails over a five-year period, the response said no information is kept on foiled attempts.

“B.C. Corrections does not compile records of statistics/data related to escape plans uncovered (or) escape attempts,” Samara Fisher, senior freedom of information analyst, wrote.

Advertisement 5

Article content

The ministry did provide statistics on escapes since 2017.

Coquitlam RCMP released video surveillance of the two suspects that helped Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil escape from North Fraser Pretrial on July 21, 2022. The suspects fled in a white Ford Econoline van.
Coquitlam RCMP released video surveillance of the two suspects that helped Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil escape from North Fraser Pretrial on July 21, 2022. The suspects fled in a white Ford Econoline van. Photo by HANDOUT/RCMP /jpg

In addition to Alkhalil, there have been nine other escapes over five years. Two each in 2018 and 2017 involved inmates on work crews outside of the institutions. Single escapes in each of those years involved inmates escorted by correctional officers in the community. Two 2020 escapes involved inmates who had been granted temporary absences from the jails but who didn’t return as scheduled.

The only other “prison breach” in that period was in 2017.

Coquitlam RCMP, the detachment investigating the Alkhalil escape, released some details on what happened within days — that the killer was aided by two men posing as contractors at North Fraser. They were captured on video with high-visibility vests and dark clothing leaving in a white Econoline van at 6:48 p.m.

Advertisement 6

Article content

The contractors left fake ID at the jail with stock photos available for purchase on the internet, which investigators initially released as actual photos of the suspects.

The only person charged in the escape is Alkhalil — facing two counts laid on Aug. 12 of “forcible prison break with intent to free himself” and “escape lawful custody.”

Unlike the high-profile 2007 escape of gangster Omid Tahvili, who was aided by North Fraser guard Edwin Ticne, no correctional officers have been implicated in the Alkhalil escape. Ticne was sentenced to three years. Tahvili was never recaptured.

Postmedia has learned the “contractors” in the latest escape used the name of a company that was approved to work in the jail. How they got the list of vetted contractors is not known.

Advertisement 7

Article content

The two accomplices used a plasma torch to cut open a grate between an outdoor area that Alkhalil could access and the secure area from which he escaped. No one noticed he was gone until the next prisoner head count, 20 minutes later.

Police were not called until 42 minutes after Alkhalil left the grounds. No public announcement about the escape was made until 10:19 p.m., almost four hours later, though the news release was headed: “Urgent request: Police looking for Rabih Alkhalil.”

One senior official told Postmedia there were failures in circulating information about the escape to other law enforcement agencies and to the public.

“I think there was some failures in the response,” said the official, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to comment. “They were slow at the switch to disseminate information, slow at the switch to co-ordinate a response.”

Advertisement 8

Article content


Prison officials believed Alkhalil was a security risk

North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam.
North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam. Photo by Mike Bell /PNG

A month after Alkhalil escaped, a B.C. Supreme Court jury convicted him in absentia of first-degree murder in the 2012 slaying of longtime rival Sandip Duhre. He was also convicted of conspiring to kill Duhre, as well as gangster Sukh Dhak, who was gunned down in November 2012.

It was Alkhalil’s second murder conviction. He was already serving life for the June 2012 murder in Toronto of Johnny Raposo, shot to death as he watched soccer at a Little Italy café.

And Alkhalil was also convicted in Montreal in 2020 of cocaine smuggling. He had an outstanding appeal of that conviction when he absconded.

Judge Benoît Moore dismissed the appeal in September after the prosecutor in the case “produced abundant evidence showing that the appellant Alkhalil is on the run.”

Advertisement 9

Article content

Postmedia reviewed more than a dozen Alkhalil rulings in other provinces that highlighted the security risk that prison officials believe Alkhalil posed long before his B.C. escape.

In January 2019, Alkhalil was put in segregation “after the authorities found in his cell smuggled goods such as steroids and a cellular phone,” one Quebec ruling said.

In March 2020, another Quebec judge, Michel Pennou, heard Alkhalil was well-known to Quebec’s Public Security Ministry when he arrived at the Montreal Detention Centre on April 25, 2019, to await trial in the drug case.

“He had been detained in a provincial facility in 2015 and 2016, after being extradited from Greece. He was then awaiting two murder trials, one in Ontario and one in British Columbia, and two drug trafficking and gangsterism trials,” Pennou noted in his ruling. “Already then, he was considered a high-risk prisoner.”

Advertisement 10

Article content

The assessment of Alkhalil “recommended that he should be held in restrictive conditions and sent to a restrictive unit … in the opinion of the ministry’s intelligence services, he represented a high flight risk.”

Alkhalil filed several challenges of the conditions in which he was held in both provincial and federal custody, demanding more information about the intelligence that led to his high-security designation.

“The justification for these particular and restrictive security measures stems from the findings of the MSP’s (the ministry’s) intelligence services: Alkhalil is associated with high level organized crime; he represents a significant flight risk; his security could be compromised because of possible antagonisms,” Pennou said.

Advertisement 11

Article content

With all the warning signs, how could Alkhalil still manage to escape?

The high-level official said Alkhalil was probably “out of the country within an hour” of his B.C. escape.

“At the end of the day, we have got a massive gang problem on our hands and violence in our streets and we allow one of the most prolific offenders and leaders of that to get away,” the official said. “It’s paramount to Mexico and El Chapo — and he didn’t even have to dig a tunnel.”


Escape ‘a very well-planned operation’

The prison escape on July 21, 2022.
The prison escape on July 21, 2022. Photo by Gilmour, Kier /jpg

Few families have had as much involvement with police across Canada as the Alkhalils. Displaced refugees who came to Canada from Saudi Arabia in 1990, the family initially settled in Surrey, where Robby’s older brothers started getting into trouble.

Advertisement 12

Article content

Nabil Alkhalil was convicted of stabbing a Duhre associate in May 2000 in Surrey’s Holly Park. He said at the time he was only trying to protect his younger brothers.

One of those brothers, Khalil Alkhalil, just 19, was shot to death in Surrey in January 2001. His killer, Michael Naud, said the shooting was self-defence. A jury acquitted Naud, but he was later gunned down in suspected retaliation.

In 2003, another brother, Mahmoud Alkhalil, died after a shooting at the Loft Six nightclub. Sandip Duhre was one of several notorious gangsters in the Vancouver club when the violence broke out.

After the death of two sons, dad Hossein moved the family to Ottawa.

That’s when Mike Laviolette, a now retired Ottawa Police inspector, first encountered the family, and worked on Project Anarchy — a drug trafficking investigation that led to charges against brother Hisham (Terry) Alkhalil and several others. Charges against Terry were stayed in 2018 due to delays in the case going to trial.

Advertisement 13

Article content

“They were very active, not just on a local and national level, but an international level as well which demonstrated their ability to just be as mobile as they wanted to be,” Laviolette said recently.

He pointed to Nabil, who was fatally shot in Mexico in 2018.

“He ended up fleeing and breaching his conditions and landing in Colombia, only to be turned around at the airport … that’s when he ended up in Mexico.”

He said Robby’s escape “was obviously a very well-planned operation. So my expectation is that he was out of the country as quick as he was out of the jail.”

“He’s already demonstrated that you can go to Europe, you can go to South America, you can go wherever the hell you want because money is no object.”

The Ontario investigation into the Alkhalils began because police there wanted to prevent the kind of gang violence the Lower Mainland has experienced for almost two decades.

Advertisement 14

Article content

“It was the propensity for violence — the potential for them being violent, or people who wanted them dead being violent, in our city,” Laviolette said. “We disrupted them enough that we were able to prevent any type of large-scale violence within our city.”

Was he surprised that Robby Alkhalil escaped?

“Yes, because I would have expected them to keep him locked down much tighter considering who he was and what he’s capable of. And he’s already fled before,” Laviolette said. “But at the same time, I kind of laughed and I thought, ‘Of course he did. If anybody’s going to do that, it’s going to be him. He’ll be able to pull it off.’ And sure enough, he did.”

[email protected]

Twitter.com/kbolan


More news, fewer ads: Our in-depth journalism is possible thanks to the support of our subscribers. For just $3.50 per week, you can get unlimited, ad-lite access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.

    Advertisement 1

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.



Leave a comment

x
SMM Panel PDF Kitap indir