Pubdate: Sun, 19 Apr 2009
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Katie Mercer

WOMEN JOIN HIT LISTS IN GANG WARS

Since Feb. 3 Four Females With Links To Gang Activity Have Been 
Targeted, Gunned Down

In a year that has seen a maelstrom of targeted shootings in B.C., 
the code of "no women, no children" seems to no longer abide.

Since Feb. 3, four women with links to gang activity have been gunned 
down in targeted hits, an anomaly in the Lower Mainland's 
male-dominated gangland violence.

"We haven't seen this very often; we certainly can say we've seen an 
increase in the number of women which appear to be targeted," said 
Cpl. Dale Carr, spokesman for the Integrated Homicide Investigation 
Team. "This indicates that women are not exempt from being tar- 
geted." First there was Brianna Kinnear, then Nikki Alemy, then Laura 
Lamoureux and last week Betty Yan. All four had links to either drug 
or gang activity. All four were gunned down in targeted shootings.

The murders seem anomalous, said gang expert Michael Chettleburgh, 
because we haven't heard much of this before. "We are going to see 
more of [these targeted hits] in the future because more women are 
getting involved in the game," he said.

That wasn't the case 15 years ago, when veteran gangsters upheld 
common street rules best documented by rapper Tupac's "Code of Thug 
Life." New gangsters don't subscribe to this code, said Chettleburgh, 
because "anyone's fair game" -- women included.

While less than 10 per cent of gang members in Canada are women, they 
still have roles in criminal activity.

Gang members' girlfriends may often work in the underground sex trade 
as exotic dancers or escorts.

"They need to produce for the gang if they're going to be in the 
game," said Chettleburgh. These areas also open up new routes and 
customers for drug trafficking, he added.

Females are also deployed in traditional jobs such as tax bureaus, 
banks and real-estate agencies for information-gathering purposes. 
These roles enable other types of crime, including mortgage and 
credit-card fraud.

They may also carry, hold and transport drugs, as they are generally 
less likely to draw attention from the police and border guards. 
Chettleburgh added that women are less likely to sell on the street 
because of fear of violent rip-offs and bad deals. That hasn't 
necessarily been the case in B.C.

Police allege both Kinnear and Lamoureux were involved in the 
street-level drug trade, while friends of Ryan Richards, a 
19-year-old man gunned down in Abbotsford on March 31, told The 
Province he ran a drug line with a female.

Women may also be used to infiltrate rival gangs to gather 
information to intimidate witnesses or they may lure rivals into 
dangerous situations or places.

"We are just starting to understand the level of involvement of 
women," said Chettleburgh. "But they have always been there." He said 
it wouldn't be unlikely to hear of more women involved in the 
business of gangs being killed in the crossfire.

"If you've chosen that lifestyle, you've also chosen that risk," he 
said. "You can expect at some point you may be in the path of a 
bullet." - ---

The unspoken rules of "no women, no children" disappeared -- if they 
ever existed -- when Nikki Alemy was murdered.

On Feb. 16, two days after she celebrated her 23rd birthday, the 
young mother was murdered in front of her horrified four-year-old son.

Alemy was driving her husband's car down a quiet, sunny street in 
Surrey not far from where she grew up when the driver's-side window 
was shot out in a drive-by.

A passing motorist, who narrowly avoided the car as it drifted into 
the oncoming lane, gently steered it off the road. Other motorists 
tried to calm the child while a doctor who was passing by tended to Alemy.

Her six-year-old daughter was not in the car at the time.

Alemy's husband, Koshan Alemy, is allegedly connected to the UN Gang. 
He was charged alongside another man in 2007 for numerous 
weapons-related offences. The charges were eventually stayed in March 2008.

Police said Koshan Alemy was co-operating in the investigation. No 
new information has been released since.

- ---

Laura Lynne Lamoureux never made it home.

The 36-year-old had e-mailed her mother in Ontario several hours 
before her body was found alongside a Langley road on March 14.

"She e-mailed me that night at 10 p.m. saying she was coming home, 
she didn't say for how long," her mother Barbara Lamoureux told The 
Province from her Trenton, Ont., home.

"But she was killed at 5 a.m. the next morning."

Police said the 36-year-old's death was linked to the street-level, 
drug-trafficking trade. Her criminal record included charges of 
weapons possession, break-and-enter and possession of stolen 
property, but no drug-related charges.

Lamoureux's mother said that while her daughter did have a record, it 
was exaggerated after her death.

"We were always there for her," she said. "She was a loving, loving 
girl. It was very hard for her to accept friends but once she did she 
valued them for life."

Lamoureux's first love was her horses. She was an equestrian jumper 
since the age of 10 and had owned horses growing up in Ontario and 
initially when she moved to B.C. 12 years ago.

- ---

It came as no surprise to many when Betty Yan, a.k.a. "Big Sister" 
Betty, was killed.

Police found the mother of three shot to death in the driver's seat 
of her grey Mercedes in Richmond on April 15.

Yan had slipped into Canada as a refugee via Bangkok, Thailand, in 
1969 and quickly became involved in Asian organized-crime groups. But 
she played both sides by working with police investigators, offering 
them information on triads.

She was present when loan shark "Pretty Boy" Meng was fatally shot in 
a Richmond restaurant in 1988. Yan was also considered a person of 
interest in the murder investigation of Tommy Wong, who was killed 
during a Richmond home invasion in 2002.

Her links to the criminal underworld didn't stop there. Yan also was 
a known associate of loan shark Kwok Chung Tam and was one of the 
first people in the country to align herself with China's most wanted 
man, Lai Changxing.

Yan had a reputation for running a violent and ruthless loan-sharking 
operation. She was known for taking citizenship cards as collateral 
when her victims failed to pay their interest.

- ---

Brianna Helen Kinnear had her life snuffed out before it barely began.

On Feb. 3, the 21-year-old was found slumped over the steering wheel 
of a friend's pickup on a Coquitlam street.

She was only five weeks into an eight-month conditional sentence for 
trafficking cocaine, pot and oxycodine. Her co-accused were her best 
friend Tiffany Bryan and her boyfriend Jesse Margison.

A source told The Province that Bryan was working a drug line 
operated by Margison, who was arrested in February in connection with 
a December 2006 incident where cash and drugs were stolen followed by 
the July 2007 forcible confinement and mutilation of a Metro Vancouver man.

Weeks after the devastating loss of Kinnear, Bryan made a plea on an 
online memorial for the killings to stop.

Unfortunately, Kinnear doesn't seem to be the first victim in her 
crew. The group has a reputation for violently ripping off other 
dial-a-dope operations, which may be prompting the series of 
slayings. Three others believed to be linked to the crew have also 
been killed in targeted shootings, and Margison survived multiple 
gunshots himself in December 2007.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom