The Notorious Bacon Brothers

by Jerry Langton

  They then discussed who would pick up the drugs and the identity of a “partner” Jarrod had mentioned. GL threw out a name, but Scott believed it was his daughter. Scott then suggested Jarrod come to the warehouse to pick up the drugs, but GL said there was no way he'd do it while he was on bail and under constant surveillance. He then suggested they put it in Scott's house. Scott didn't like that idea and told GL that there was no way the drugs would be in his house overnight. GL said that was okay with him, they could just use his house as the money drop. But he also warned that if he did not get paid within 24 hours, he would sell the drugs himself. Scott assured him he would get paid, and then he went home.

  Less than an hour later, at 6:18 p.m., an SUV registered to Susan Bacon and driven by David Bacon pulled up at Scott's house. Jarrod exited the vehicle and walked into Scott's house through the garage. At 7:09 p.m., he emerged with Scott. Police say they caught him on video motioning “ten o'clock” to Scott.

  Jarrod left with his dad, and Scott kept walking down the street. A distance away from the house, Scott called GL. Scott told GL he had met with Jarrod, who told Scott that he'd drop the cash off at Scott's house at ten that evening. He also said that it wasn't determined who'd pick up the drugs yet.

  GL got angry. “You know what ten o'clock says to me?” he asked. “Pitch black and guns.” Scott assured him that Jarrod wasn't planning to rip him off and that the kid dropping off the money was one who lived in his house and had worked for Jarrod for a while.

  Scott appeared to have a little trouble with the arithmetic involved, so GL took out a sheet of paper and calculated that the deposit and commission on the 72 kilos would be a total of $456,000.

  They then discussed Jarrod's curfew (which was nine o'clock), and GL then attempted to have Scott convince Jarrod to make the drop himself, while it was still light out. “I'm just trying to figure out if this is real. Gonna ... I mean obviously this makes sense,” GL said. “So he's home at nine o'clock and can't fucking move.” Scott then assured GL his money would be delivered at 10:00 p.m. GL was not satisfied with that. He told Scott to text Jarrod and tell him that GL refused to work in the dark and “it's daylight, he's still mobile or can be mobile, he's got an hour or two to do his thing.”

  At eight that evening, David Bacon drove Jarrod to Scott's house just as Scott was arriving. Police surveillance teams videotaped Jarrod and Scott having a very “animated” discussion. As soon as Jarrod and his dad (who did not get out of the SUV) left, at 8:07 p.m., Scott called GL and told him, “I just had a fucking little talk with that little boy here just a second ago.” They then agreed to meet in 15 minutes at the warehouse.

  A few minutes later, GL called him back. “Before I come tearing back, and before you get all excited,” he asked, “are we talking, or is he going to buy the truck, or what are we doing?”

  Scott stalled. “I'll let you know when I see ya,” he said. “I'll tell ya this, I'll tell ya the scoop. Yeah, the money's en route, it's en route, and I tell you ya what I need to tell ya when I see ya.”

  Mollified, GL then told Scott he'd rather meet at the cemetery instead of the warehouse. Scott was surprised; he said he had just about arrived at the warehouse with the understanding the deal would go down there.

  The police, listening to all of the phone conversations, had already infiltrated the warehouse, and an emergency response team was waiting both inside and out.

  Just as they were deploying, Scott arrived at the warehouse and, after seeing a couple of what he thought might have been cop cars, drove on past.

  Just after nine, Scott received another call from GL. He said that he'd seen a Cadillac that “was skulking through the parking lot there, and within about five minutes, it was showtime.” Scott agreed with GL's opinion that the warehouse was a bad place to meet at the moment and said he was headed home. Scott then said he planned to “erase everyone's phones, that stuff out of my phone,” and continued, “And, and I'm not fuckin' you, like it's like I was supposed to text junior back there on yes or no [indiscernible noise], I can't fuckin' do that either.”

  GL did his best to calm Scott down and told him they would speak again the next day.

  At about two in the afternoon, GL called Scott and heard some interesting news. That morning, Scott had been called to a job site at—of all places—the building next door to the warehouse. A friend of his there told him that he had been approached by the police the night before and they told him they were “staking the place out.” Scott then told GL that he believed that “somewhere, all the way, somebody knew something was going on.” He then went on to tell GL that other men at the job site had reported seeing and even talking to cops at the warehouse the night before. He even went on to tell GL that if the cops questioned him about driving by the warehouse the night before, he'd tell them that he had just gone “to scope out the job [next door] to see where he needed to park in the morning.”

  That would be the last time GL and Scott would speak on the telephone. CFSEU officers arrested Jarrod Bacon and Wayne Scott at their homes without incident on November 26, 2009. No actual drugs had ever been involved, but the police felt they had damning enough evidence from the conversations GL had recorded. In their investigative report, the CFSEU said that they believed Jarrod had no intention of paying GL and was instead going to steal the drugs. They also believed that Scott was not aware of Jarrod's plan and that he genuinely thought he was negotiating a huge drug deal. Carly was not charged.

  Unbeknownst to Jarrod and Scott was the fact that on the same day, CFSEU officers also arrested Doug Vanalstine—who'd taken over as boss of the UN after Barzan Tilli-Choli went down—and his fellow UN members Daryl Johnson and Nicholas Wester.

  Interestingly, just as Jarrod was on bail for weapons charges, Vanalstine was on bail from a charge for trafficking in the United States that stemmed from Clayton Roueche's arrest, and Johnson was also on bail, waiting for a court date regarding a trafficking charge in the Okanagan district. Scott had no previous record, but Wester had served time in the U.S. for trafficking. After his arrest, Jarrod admitted to using Oxycontin and cocaine, smoking marijuana daily and regularly taking steroids.

  Neither of the two groups had realized they were caught in the same operation until the jail-yard rumor mill at the remand center informed them the following day. But it was something the police obviously felt some pride in. “These types of arrests definitely show the community we are targeting the right people,” said Superintendent Dan Malo of the CFSEU. “We're targeting the people who are the highest risk to public safety.”

  On that very same day, the IHIT announced the arrest of Sophon Sek on manslaughter, and break and enter, in connection with the Surrey Six murders. Sek was something of a celebrity in the Lower Mainland; his gap-toothed grin and thumbs-up pose were plastered over much of the area after he beat 678 other players to win the 2009 B.C. Poker Championship at the River Rock Casino in Richmond just days before. In fact, he had yet to collect his $364,364 in prize money. Police made motions to seize the money, which Sek's lawyer, Alan Ip, fought. It was Eileen Mohan, though, who seemed to have the best handle on the winnings. “I don't think he'll be able to enjoy his money for a long time,” she said.

  Also on that same day, Kelowna mixed martial arts fighter Geoff Meisner went missing. A heavyweight at 6'1”, 275 pounds, Meisner had a 0–1 record after losing to Louisville, Kentucky's Ron “The Monster” Sparks at the Colosseo Championship Fighting event in Edmonton on March 6, 2009.

  On November 27, 2009, his wife, Tammy, drove him to the Orchard Park Shopping Centre to retrieve his truck, a brand new white Ford F-350 pickup, that he had left in the parking lot overnight. That was the last she ever saw of him. The truck was found later that evening in the lot of a Starbucks less than five minutes' drive away. There was no sign of struggle.

  In her public appeal for his return, Tammy Meisner claimed his profession was as “a mixed martial arts fighter and protein salesman.” Later, when she
was petitioning the court to have him ruled deceased so she and their four young daughters could gain access to his assets, she admitted that his primary sources of income came from “the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and another criminal gang known as the King Pin Crew.”

  The King Pin Crew was a Kelowna-based Hells Angels puppet gang allegedly run by Dale Habib, a bar owner whose patrons numbered a few full-patch Hells Angels. The King Pin Crew's logo consisted of three conjoined skulls, the middle one of which was crowned. Their official Facebook page lists them as a professional sports team and bears the slogan “we love kick'n peopl's head's in!!!”

  And events from around the country would also affect the Lower Mainland gangs. In Winnipeg, police had managed to turn Michael Satsatin, the secretary-treasurer of the Zig Zag Crew (perhaps the most powerful Hells Angels puppet gang since the heyday of the Rockers in Laval) to turn informant. In exchange for $450,000 and personal immunity, Satsatin recorded 37 official Zig Zag Crew meetings over 13 months. The evidence he collected led to 31 arrests, including every full-patch member of the Zig Zag Crew, a cousin of an NHL player and a former RCMP officer on December 1, 2009.

  A less likely seeming arrest that came from Satsatin's evidence was that of Eric Sandberg, a well-educated, middle-class Surrey man with no arrest record. In fact, he was also undergoing treatment for rectal cancer, a type with a far less than 50/50 survival rate.

  But the tapes didn't lie. Sandberg was recorded during trips to Winnipeg, where he had grown up, dealing ecstasy, trafficking weapons and collecting debts. He was recorded telling the Winnipeggers that he could get them “any kind of” firearm they wanted and bragging that the Hells Angels and their allies in the Lower Mainland could “wipe out” any opposition. Many took that as a confirmation of the widespread belief that the Hells Angels were not just cozying up to the Red Scorpions and Bacon Brothers, but also distancing themselves from the UN.

  He was also recorded managing an operation in which Satsatin deposited $1,000 per month in a CIBC account to repay a $20,000 debt he had incurred with another, unnamed, Lower Mainland trafficker.

  The Winnipeg media portrayed Sandberg as the “independent drug dealer” his defense team made him out to be. But that seems unlikely, even ridiculous. If he was an independent drug dealer (which, in the Lower Mainland, was almost impossible to be at anything but a subsistence level because of the Hells Angels' attempts to monopolize the trade), it would be unlikely he would also be able to traffic heavy weapons. It's also very unlikely he would be welcome at official Zig Zag Crew meetings or that he would be bragging about the Hells Angels strategic power in the Lower Mainland. And it's even harder to believe an independent drug dealer would go all the way to Winnipeg to make sure that a high-ranking Zig Zag Crew member was paying his debt to another drug dealer in an orderly and timely manner.

  A more plausible explanation is that although Sandberg was not a member of the Hells Angels or a related club, he was held in high enough esteem by them to be their ambassador to their friends in Winnipeg. He was, in all likelihood, there selling Hells Angels' supplied drugs and weapons, and ensuring the locals' accounts were all up to date. And unless he was caught red-handed or on tape, he never would have been suspected of a thing.

  While Canadian law enforcement was concentrating on getting inside the gangs, the Americans were doing their best to establish a deterrent. Clayton Roueche's trial in the United States had been stacked against him from the start.

  Despite the Maseratis and the condos, Roueche claimed he could not afford an attorney and asked the court to appoint him one. It was a bold move, part of a strategy to discredit prosecution claims that he made millions from the drug trade.

  Canadian investigators raided his home and discovered what they called “a kit for kidnapping or murder.” It consisted of a gun, handcuffs, full-face masks, night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests. Then authorities on both sides of the border started offering deals to UN members and associates who were charged with various offenses if they could provide any information on Roueche. Plenty did.

  On December 15, 2009, the court in Seattle, about two hours' drive south of Abbotsford, handed down a remarkable sentence. Roueche was to serve 30 years in an American prison. If it had been a Canadian court, his crimes probably would have netted him about six years, of which he would likely spend only four behind bars. But in the United States, 30 years generally means 30 years.

  He emerged in the news about a year later when images from his Facebook page were made public. Some of the pictures he posted were of East Asian imagery (dragons and things like that), one was an inspirational poem and another was a drawing celebrating the UN's 13-year anniversary. Most interesting, though, were the pictures of himself. He had slimmed down and hit the weights, and was posing with a number of new friends, most of them Asian. He was soon transferred from Lee penitentiary in Jonesville, Virginia, to the massive Federal Corrections Complex in Lee, Florida. If he serves his entire sentence, he'll be free in 2039, when he's 64.

  There was now little doubt that the long, arduous plan for law enforcement to take down the Bacon Brothers as a criminal organization was working out. Jamie and his friends were behind bars waiting for the Surrey Six murder trial and things did not look good for them. Jarrod and his son's grandfather were also in jail, awaiting their turn before a judge on trafficking charges. With tons of recordings of conversations featuring them dealing with a rather efficient and motivated informant, their chances of getting away with it looked pretty slim, too.

  But everyone knew that the brains of the Bacon Brothers, what made them so powerful and so prominent, was Jonathan—the oldest one, the smart one. To get to him would be to really bring down the Bacon Brothers.

  Law enforcement's previous attempt—in which he and his friend Godwin Chen were caught with drugs and weapons, and his girlfriend, Rayleene Burton, had been caught trying to escape with cash—resulted in failure when Justice Donald Gardner ruled the evidence inadmissable because the police did not have the authority to search the vehicle the deal went down in or the vehicle Burton had fled in.

  It doesn't happen very often, but the Crown actually appealed the Bacon-Cheng-Burton acquittal. And, in an even rarer occurrence, a team of judges found that one of their peers had made a mistake. The B.C. Court of Appeal tribunal agreed unanimously. Gardner had erred in determining that the arrests and subsequent searches were illegal or unwarranted. They ordered a new trial.

  Jonathan Bacon was not behind bars, but he was in big trouble. And the Teflon sheen that he had sported for so many years had fallen away. Though they were still far from eliminated, the myth of the Bacon Brothers' invincibility had been extinguished.

  Chapter 11

  The Wolf Pack: 2010–2011

  While two of the Bacon Brothers were behind bars and the other was awaiting trial—and well aware he was under close police surveillance—the rest of the drug scene in British Columbia continued without them, just as it had without Roueche and Tilli-Choli. But the vacancies at the top were being filled by lesser talents.

  One person who was involved in the drug trade hardly fit the stereotypical description of a drug user or trafficker. Kelowna's Brittney Irving was a pretty, dark-haired 24-year-old. Although she usually sported a tan, you could always see her trademark freckles on her nose and cheeks. Several people I spoke with recalled her as a delightful personality, full of life with a great sense of humor.

  She was also a healthcare professional. Irving served as a care aide, a registered assistant who aids nurses and practitioners in hospitals and other facilities. She was even known to show up at work on her days off, just because she so enjoyed the company of her patients and coworkers. And she saw what drugs could do to people.

  But she had a problem. Irving had become addicted to Oxycontin, a highly addictive oral painkiller with clinical similarities to heroin (in fact, it's commonly known as “hillbilly heroin” in the United States). And she didn't fit that description, ei
ther. Typically, Canadian Oxycontin users are over 30 and live in the Atlantic provinces or rural Ontario. Few work in the healthcare industry, in which knowledge of what Oxycontin can do is widespread.

  But she was an Oxycontin user and paid for her addiction the way many people in B.C. do—by selling weed. In fact, in March 2009, a police raid at a grow op at a luxurious beach house at 387 Brealoch Road uncovered 1,500 pot plants. Two men and one woman in the house were arrested. Irving also lived in the house but was not present when the raid went down and was not charged. Without anywhere else to live, she checked into a motel. Sources have said that the grow op was part of a massive Hells Angels–operated network. She was also known as a heavy drinker and had been known to associate with Hells Angels, Independent Soldiers and members of the King Pin Crew.

  On April 6, 2010, she left the Kelowna Days Inn at about one in the afternoon. She told a family member that she was going to a meeting in the Rutland area but didn't give any details. It was the last time any of her family saw her alive.

  She did, however, say a lot more to her ex-boyfriend, Shaun O'Neil, who was still a close friend. “She said, ‘I'm going to meet someone that is a real bad person, and I'm scared of doing what I'm going to do. But this is the last time; don't convince me not to. I love you and pray for me,’” he said, repeating the words that still haunt him. “That was the last I ever heard from her. For the rest of my life, I'll regret not convincing her not to go.”

  She was going to trade some weed for Oxycontin. She was reported to have taken 80 pounds of weed and $200,000 with her.

  Her empty, locked blue 2001 Ford Explorer was found at seven the following evening in a deeply wooded area by West Kelowna RCMP acting on an anonymous tip. It was parked on a gravel shoulder of Philpott Road where it meets Highway 33. There were no signs of struggle.