Hells Angel, shot dead outside Mandarin restaurant, had ties to Caribbean, GTA and Quebec
Investigators will have to look across the GTA, into Quebec and down to the Caribbean to catalogue the deadly enemies of a long-time Hells Angel who was shot dead in front of a Mandarin restaurant in Burlington, where he had just dined with his family.
Craig (Truck) McIlquham, 55, was shot to death around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday after eating at the family-style buffet restaurant at 1881 Fairview Street, about a five minute-drive from the Queen Elizabeth Way.
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Police plead for information in 2019 homicide of Richmond, B.C., notary Stephen Chong
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Hells Angel charged with uttering threats in Surrey
Surrey Hells Angel Jaswinder Basi has been charged with uttering threats, though police are not commenting on the circumstances that led to his recent arrest. Basi, 40, was a member of the Haney chapter of the B.C. Hells Angel, though last year he moved to Ontario to join the Nomads chapter there. He splits his time between the two provinces, according to sources. The B.C. court online database shows that Basi is accused of making threats to cause death or bodily harm on March 25 in Surrey. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. The charge was sworn against him on April 18 and he was arrested a day later while driving a Ford Focus in Cloverdale. He was ordered released on bail on April 19 with a followup court appearance scheduled for May 14. Surrey Police Service spokesman Ian MacDonald said he couldn't comment on the Basi charge and arrest because 'this is part of an ongoing investigation.' Basi owns at least two Lower Mainland businesses. Some of his former Haney chapter-mates have also faced recent run-ins with the law. Last year, Courtenay Lafreniere was sentenced to three years in prison for possession of property obtained by crime. The charge stemmed from an eight-month-long investigation by the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit. The probe into a group believed to be involved in a large-scale, interprovincial drug-trafficking operation began in 2020. During a July 2021 search, CFSEU officers found $65,570 in Lafreniere's Maple Ridge home, according to a civil forfeiture lawsuit filed in 2022. Some of it was bundled with elastic bands. There was also benzocaine, cocaine and 2.4 kilograms of cannabis. All but $5,000 of the cash was forfeited to the B.C. government in December, court records indicate. Another longtime Haney Hells Angel, Vincenzo Sansalone, was sentenced in December 2023 to four years in jail for trafficking in a controlled substance. The charge stemmed from a joint Canada-U. S. transnational organized crime investigation conducted by the RCMP's B.C. federal serious and organized crime unit and U.S. authorities. And Haney member Damion Ryan is awaiting trial in custody in Manitoba, where police allege he had a role in a major interprovincial drug trafficking operation. His trial is scheduled for September 2025. Ryan was also charged in the U.S. last year with being part of an unsuccessful murder-for-hire plot targeting two Iranian dissidents living there. The U.S. indictment says Ryan was working for Iranian drug lord Naji Zindashti — on orders from the Iranian government — and alleges he was recorded on an encrypted device agreeing to put together a team to do the hit for $350,000 US, plus $20,000 in expenses. Other B.C. Hells Angels have also been charged or convicted in recent years, including B.C. Nomad Francisco Batista Pires, 62, charged in March with one count of keeping an illegal gaming house. The B.C. bikers are still being impacted by the forfeiture of Hells Angels clubhouses in Nanaimo, Kelowna and east Vancouver to the provincial government in 2023 after a long-running lawsuit. Since then, the former east Vancouver clubhouse on East Georgia has been listed and sold and both the Nanaimo and Kelowna clubhouses have been demolished. kbolan@ @
Toronto Star
11-05-2025
- Toronto Star
‘Brazen' killing at Mandarin restaurant near Toronto shines light on Hells Angels' changing business model
Craig (Truck) McIlquham of Oakville thrived as a member of the Hells Angels as the organization moved from loud acts of public violence to quiet, online money-making. McIlquham, 55, and fellow outlaw bikers learned that there's plenty of money to be made if you're relatively low-key, skilled on the computer, and feared. McIlquham — who was also known as Craig Brown, according to Halton Regional Police — got his nickname, 'Truck,' because of his formidable size, just short of 300 pounds. He was shot to death at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, while leaving a Mandarin family-style restaurant in Burlington, about a five-minute drive from the Queen Elizabeth Way. His killing remains unsolved, but police say it was targeted. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Investigators have appealed to the public for anyone with dashcam footage of Fairview and Brant Streets between the hours of 4 and 10 p.m. on April 29. They are particularly interested, they say, in a late model, dark Honda Civic with tinted windows. McIlquham's killer is either very lucky or very experienced, Larry Tronstad, a retired organized crime specialist with the RCMP, said in an interview, noting that the killer's drive out of the narrow parking lot could have been challenging, especially if someone had accidentally blocked his way. 'It's brazen, brazen,' Tronstad said. McIlquham, a father of three, had just dined with his wife and family. Police have given few details of his shooting and no explanation has been offered to explain how McIlquham's killer knew he would be at the restaurant. Certainly, no clues come from his fellow Hells Angels, who have been notably low-key in the wake of the shooting. There were no apparent threats of retaliation and relatively few words of grief on his online memorial, with a notable absence of condolence messages from the Quebec arm of the Hells Angels, considered the club's power base. Gta Hells Angel shot dead outside Mandarin receives online tributes from abroad There is online love from Switzerland, Denmark and the Caribbean on a memorial site — but so far nothing from any Canadian bikers. Gta Hells Angel shot dead outside Mandarin receives online tributes from abroad There is online love from Switzerland, Denmark and the Caribbean on a memorial site — but so far nothing from any Canadian bikers. Back when McIlquham was starting out with the Angels decades ago, the club's Quebec arm was locked in a loud and bloody war with the rival Rock Machine and then Bandidos clubs, a conflict that killed 160 people and injured another 300. The battle was over drug turf and its casualties included Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy killed by flying shrapnel. That accidental death spurred the passage of tougher anti-organized crime legislation and saw the Hells Angels designated as a criminal organization. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Drugs are still an important source of revenue, but the Angels have also moved into less risky — but sometimes more profitable — enterprises like gambling and loansharking, experts say. That sometimes puts them in partnerships with traditional Mafia groups, like the 'Ndrangheta out of Calabria, Italy. 'Online gambling has been a venture for some 'Ndrangheta clans, including those in the Toronto area and that was done with (outlaw motorcycle gangs),' Mafia expert Anna Sergi said in an email. The rough reputation of Canadian Hells Angels has helped them expand their international reach in online gambling since the end of the biker wars, added author and academic Declan Hill Canadian Hells Angels. 'The Canadian chapters are spoken of with fear and renown as the most violent of all the biker groups,' Hill, an associate professor in criminal justice and investigations at the University of New Haven, said in an email interview. 'The Quebec wars created long shadows.' The internet has also greatly benefited Canadian Hells Angels in the 2000s, he said. 'It is a globalized world and organized crime got the message sooner than most corporations of how to work and move in a new world.' Before his murder, McIlquham was most notable for being charged in 2019 with being a leader in a major international, multimillion-dollar gambling and loansharking operation. That arrest came in the ill-fated Project Hobart investigation, which saw police allege a strong partnership between GTA Hells Angels and mobsters before the case fell apart over delays. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW For a man with a sparse legitimate resume, McIlquham had plenty of possessions. Investigators in the 2019 Project Hobart case alleged he had a series of properties in the GTA, where he kept some of his cash in secret compartments and used trap doors to hide away gold, silver and jewelry. The Crown also alleged in 2019 that he hid $11,000, a gun and a cellphone in a trap compartment in one of his vehicles. McIlquham, who once ran a cheque-cashing service, spent much of his time lately in the Caribbean, where police said the Hells Angels had a hand in at least four illegal gambling websites; at the time of his murder, Revenue Canada was seeking $2 million in back taxes from 2014 to 2018. That's a far step up from McIlquham's early days as a bodyguard for Walter (Nurget) Stadnick of Hamilton, once widely considered Canada's top Hells Angel. In September 2004, Stadnick was convicted in Montreal on a variety of organized crime offences, including conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to traffic drugs and involvement in gang activities. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, reduced to about 14 for time served. The rise of online gambling For a time in the early 2000s, GTA Hells Angels attempted to tackle the gang's rough image as a manageable public relations challenge. They offered a rare public apology in 2004 when one of their members was arrested after taking part in an attempted underworld hit at a California Sandwiches shop in North York that left bystander Louise Russo paralyzed from the waist down. Court later heard that North Toronto Hells Angel Paris Christoforou and underworld enforcer Antonio (Jelly) Borrelli were shooting at mobster Michele Modica, who was suspected of attempting to skip the country while owing $240,000 in gambling debt to an online gambling site based in Costa Rica, with Hells Angels and mob ties. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW While the site's web server was offshore, its muscle is in the GTA and southern Ontario through its biker and mob connections, police said. 'What makes it local is how you collect the money,' Acting Supt. Keith Finn of the RCMP said. 'You need to be able to back up the threats.' Christoforou's arrest pushed the local Hells Angels to a rare public apology, saying the club 'extends our heartfelt sympathy' to Russo and her family. (Christoforou was kicked out of the club and stripped of his gambling enterprise while he was sent to prison.) Meanwhile, the club's public relations offensive continued into fall 2004 with a billboard next to the Don Valley Parkway noting that the original members of the Hells Angels were servicemen returning from the Second World War — 'Still fighting for democracy and freedom,' it read. The public relations blitz quickly fizzled, as the bikers focused on low-risk, high-reward crimes like gambling and loansharking. Project Hobart — the investigation that nabbed McIlquham in 2019 — accused the Hells Angels of taking part in an international gambling ring with members of the GTA 'Ndrangheta. Police touted 28 arrests and the disruption of an $131-million illegal gambling network linked to the Figliomeni crime family. McIlquham's charges included possession of a restricted weapon, bookmaking and the commission of an offence for a criminal organization. Another target of Project Hobart was Niagara Hells Angel Michael (Diaz) Deabaitua-Schulde, a reputed debt collector who was murdered in broad daylight on March 11, 2019, after leaving a Mississauga gym. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW In making the arrests, the OPP announced they had seized more than $12 million in assets, including sports cars, two golf carts, seven residences, nine illegal handguns, jewelry valued at approximately $300,000, $330,000 in precious metals, $1.2 million in financial accounts and about $1.7 million in cash. Gta Massive gambling case against GTA Hells Angels falls apart over trial delay Police announced Project Hobart in December 2019 with 28 arrests and claims of disrupting of a $131-million illegal gambling network with links to Gta Massive gambling case against GTA Hells Angels falls apart over trial delay Police announced Project Hobart in December 2019 with 28 arrests and claims of disrupting of a $131-million illegal gambling network with links to Gamblers were allowed credit limits as high as $20,000, but they were also expected to settle debts within a week, police said. But the complex case was eventually thrown out of court after prosecutors took too long to bring it to trial amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The years since Project Hobart The pandemic didn't dry up the gambling partnerships or sever links between GTA Hells Angels and local mobsters, even though their favourite cafes, restaurants and gyms were closed and travel restrictions meant they couldn't jet off to Italy or Mexico — or even Montreal or New York — to make deals. Some GTA gamblers took advantage of the shutdown of government-run casinos during the pandemic to set up illegal luxury gambling spots of their own. That included a Markham casino on Decourcy Court near Warden Avenue and Major MacKenzie Drive that was busted in the fall of 2020. It served forbidden delicacies like braised shark fins served by waiters in tuxedos, police said. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW It was a 'high-end operation for high-end clientele,' Det. Sgt. Ahmad Salhia of the York Regional Police organized crime bureau said. The 53-room, cut-stone mansion was surrounded by a high, electronically-controlled metal fence and patrolled by armed guards with large German shepherd dogs. Supt. Mike Slack of York Regional Police then said illegal gambling spots had also prospered after the province shut down legal casinos over COVID-19 fears. 'It opened up an opportunity for these more extravagant locations,' Slack said. It didn't hurt police that two of the guards outside the casino were playfighting when they were supposed to be watching for police or attackers from rival gambling organizations or street gangs. After the Project Hobart case fizzled, McIlquham quietly moved to the Caribbean and closer to the club's web servers. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW It's not clear when he returned to Canada but, clearly, he told one person too many of his return and his dinner plans on April 29. One of the few people to give a tribute on his memorial page identified himself only as 'John HAMC Caribbean,' for John, Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. 'Brother, you are going to be a great loss in this world,' John HAMC Caribbean wrote. 'We had a lot of laughter and fun. Going to miss you terribly. Strength to family and friends.'
