Demple Manjit Brar was found guilty of kidnapping, unlawful confinement and extortion on Wednesday.
VANCOUVER — An Indo-Canadian man from Richmond is among several people convicted in a gang kidnapping case stemming from an incident in October 2011.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine J. Bruce found Demple Manjit Brar guilty of kidnapping, unlawful confinement and extortion on Wednesday.
Along with Brar, 43, the others convicted in the case include Robert Carr, 29, of Abbotsford, Edmond Gammel, 25, of Surrey, David Tarrant, 29, of Kamloops, and Thomas Crawford, 31, of Kamloops. These five men were arrested along with two women – Nazfar Victoria Mirhadi and Veronica Moncur.
The case involved the kidnapping of Sulaiman Safi, who was picked up from a Vancouver restaurant between Oct. 19 and 22 of 2001, after $400,000 in cash he was tasked with laundering, either disappeared or was partially or all seized by police.
Brar was integral to how police eventually tracked down the location of where Safi was being held after he was kidnapped from a Vancouver downtown restaurant.
Police already had viewed video surveillance footage from the Denman Tap House with restaurant manager, who identified Brar as a regular at the restaurant.
“From the surveillance footage, Mr. Thompson identified Demple Manjit Brar as a well known customer who was related to the owner,” according to court testimony.
A police database search linked Brar to a business at the address where Safi was held on No. 5 Road.
Vancouver Police surveillance teams had been watching the events at the front entrance of the No. 5 Road building on Oct. 21 since 11 a.m., the morning after Safi’s wife alerted police to the possible kidnapping.
The ruling details how Safi and a woman named Monica struck a bargain whereby large amounts of Canadian funds from illegal sources supplied by Monica’s clients would be transferred by Safi, through his associates, to the United States and converted to American currency.
Safi was to earn a commission for the work, to be shared with Dennis Vallee, Safi’s business partner.
At the time of the arrests, police said the kidnapping involved several suspects linked to the Red Scorpions and Independent Soldiers gangs, and the kidnappers were acting on behalf of a criminal organization in eastern Canada.
During the trial in February, the Crown argued Nazfar Mirhadi, a North Vancouver real estate agent, played a central role in the kidnapping that began at a sports bar in Vancouver’s West End.
Court heard Safi was kidnapped at the Denman Tap House, where he had gone to meet Mirhadi because she had asked him if he could transfer $400,000 to the U.S.
Prosecutor Sandra Dworkin said Safi could do it if he was given $440,000, but something went wrong with the transfer, and the money didn’t get to where it was supposed to go.
Court heard Safi was kidnapped at a meeting to discuss the missing money.
But the kidnappers didn’t know that police were watching them, probably tipped off by Safi but what tipped off police was not clarified.
Police had surveillance on the Richmond location where Safi was observed being put in the Mazda. Safi was eventually put in the back seat of a vehicle, had a black ski mask placed over his head, and driven to a location on Highway 91.
“Safi was instructed to get out but not to take the mask off right away and to sit on the meridian. He took off the white hoodie before leaving the vehicle, and sat on the meridian as instructed while the Mazda drove off. Thereafter he immediately took the ski mask off and started running across the highway and scrambled up the embankment to the other side. He was running toward a bus stop when he threw the mask away. Almost immediately thereafter, Safi was stopped by two members of the VPD strike force and taken into their police vehicle,” the court ruling said.
While five people were convicted, the main accused Mirhadi and another woman Veronica Moncur were found not guilty in B.C. Supreme Court. Mirhadi is no longer a real estate agent.
Safi, who testified at the trial via video link, is serving time in a California prison after pleading guilty to being involving in a scheme to traffic seven kilograms of cocaine and 20 kilograms of ecstasy.
