The Family Business of Crime

"These two parents of five sons came to Canada, presumably to make a better life for themselves. Now, having buried two kids before they reached the age of 20, they have two more facing the possibility of a long time in prison."
"The actions of these boys have destroyed that family."
"They took all of their organized crime and gang connections with them [from Vancouver to Ottawa and Montreal]."
"These three brothers, despite what tragedy their family has undergone, have evolved their criminal activities and taken them to highest levels on an international scale."
"They built a family crime group empire."
St. Lindsey Houghton, British Columbia Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit

Police throughout Canada have had very good reason to investigate the Alkhalil family, for years on end. Hossein Al Khalil and Soumayya Azzam had five sons, none born in Canada, and each of their boys gravitated with gusto to lives of criminal activities on a rather impressive scale. This immigrant Iranian family taking up life in Canada presenting as refugees in 1990 from Saudi Arabia have certainly distinguished themselves.

Nick Procaylo/Postmedia News/Files    The family’s fourth son, Mahmoud Alkhalil, was one of three people killed in a notorious gunfight in 2003 in Vancouver’s Loft Six nightclub.

Two of the Alkhalil brothers died in the line of fire, delivering fire themselves in gangland shootings. Two others of the sons involved in mob-related incidents face charges of drug trafficking and murder. The fifth son is abroad, evading justice, convicted of cocaine trafficking and ordered to be deported, but there is nowhere to deport him to, for he is stateless, without documentation as a citizen anywhere but Canada.

His parents had posted $170,000 as a surety to release him from immigration detention, in 2010. In 2013 he fled to an undisclosed location in the Middle East. There were threats against his life, according to his wife's testimony, and he had reason to fear that rival gang members planned his death in retaliation against his brother Rabih for the murder of another gangster.

When the family was admitted as refugees they became landed and had status in Canada. A normal life apparently was not agreeable to their aspirations. The result was that the family became notorious as a crime family deeply involved in gang life and illegal activities and violence. Originally settled in Surrey, British Columbia, the parents moved their family east to Ottawa and Montreal after two of the sons were killed in gangland violence.

The sons had their own ideas of what constituted escape from a life gone awry, and simply shifted their allegiances to other local gangs to continue their lifestyle of drug trafficking, easy money and evading retribution from other gangs. In 2001 Khalil Alkhalil, then 19, the second-born, was mortally shot over a drug debt in Surrey. The fourth son, Mahmoud was killed in a gunfight in 2003 between rival gangs. He too was 19 at the time of his death and had amassed a lengthy criminal record.

The youngest son, Rabih, had been arrested in Greece, then brought back to Canada at the turn of 2015 where he is wanted for criminal offences in three provinces. He was charged in B.C. with first-degree murder; in Ontario for first-degree murder in another killing, and in Montreal cocaine-smuggling charges as a member of the Hells Angels. The third son, Hisham, had cocaine with an estimated street value of $12.5 seized from his possession along with four guns and a $1.2-million home.

TheDirty.com    Left to right: Nabil Alkhalil, Hisham Alkhalil (aka Terry Alkhalil), and Robby Alkhalil

Canada Border Services Agency informed the parents of these five outstanding citizens of Canada that in the case of their posting of a bond for their son Nabil, their bond had been forfeited as a result of his departure from the country. And they are now demanding cheques to cover the surety. Which brought the parents to lodge a complaint with the Federal Court of Canada.

That resulted in the Federal Court's Justice Richard Mosley finding the parents were "not wholly without guilt" in their son's flight since they had waited three days before bothering to alert authorities to his flight. It can be logically assumed that the parents were also 'not wholly without guilt' in the values imparted to their crime-addicted sons.

That being said, should they fail to present the cheques as demanded to make good their surety, it would represent no tragedy to haul the entire family out of Canada in the best interests of Canadian society; to return them to Saudi Arabia which will doubtless refuse to accept them, and nor will their country of origin Iran, and more's the pity.