It was impossible not to notice Sukhvir (Sukh) Singh Deo as he lashed out at umpires from his courtside seat in a Raptors playoff game so loud and energetic that he stole the attention of LeBron James, basketball’s biggest star.
The Oakville trucking executive laughed when he was finally ejected from Scotiabank Arena during the May 23, 2016 home playoff game with Cleveland.
Despite the high-octane boos, James scored 29 points.
The Raptors achieved a 105-99 victory, led by 35 points from Kyle Lowry.
Deo marked the day by posting a television screenshot of his expulsion online on Twitter.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who might have been wise to stay low-key.
Deo, 34, had recently moved east from the Greater Vancouver area, where he had many enemies eager to kill him, as well as law enforcement officers seeking to indict him on drug trafficking charges.
Deo was connected to the Wolfpack Alliance, a group of multi-ethnic, mostly young, Internet-savvy criminals from across Canada who police suspected of bringing large amounts of cocaine from Mexico.
That brought them a lot of controversy from rivals and charges of drug trafficking and proceeds of crime for Deo in the Halton region.
Two weeks after the basketball excitement, on Tuesday June 7, 2016, two men in construction vests, one green and one orange, approached Deo and fired at least 14 bullets into the driver’s side window of his Range. White Rover just before 3pm behind a condo complex on Cowbell Lane, just east of the busy intersection of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue East.
Then the killers fled in a black Honda Civic.
Deo, who was in the driver’s seat, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hitmen in construction outfits seemed to be a calling card to both rivals and the emerging world of Wolfpack in GTA.
35-year-old Johnny Raposo was shot dead by a Wolfpack hitman who was also wearing a construction vest in the courtyard of a popular Little Italy cafe on College Street in 2012.
Deo, a married father, had moved to the GTA from Vancouver in 2013 and ran a trucking company with another man.
He was well known to the Vancouver police at the time of the murder.
His younger brother Harjit had a higher profile with authorities, after he was sentenced to seven years in prison and imposed a lifetime gun ban for a 2005 gang abduction in British Columbia. In that case, Harjit Deo received $ 2,000 to allow the kidnappers to retain a victim. in his parents’ garage, where the hostage was tied up, blindfolded, beaten and threatened at gunpoint.
“The victim was abducted apparently because he was thought to be responsible for some missing drugs,” the parole board noted in 2010. “The victim was held in various locations for three days while negotiations were conducted with the victim’s brother. to trade drugs and money for the victim. The exchange of the victim for the ransom took place in a local theater that the police had under surveillance. Once the victim was released, the police followed the vehicles involved in the exchange to his parents’ house, where the police surrounded the house and detained eight people … “
The board continued: “You seem to be drawn to the power, excitement and perceived benefits associated with criminal activity.”
Harjit Deo was granted full parole in January 2010, but was suspended on February 8, 2013 after police reported that he was believed to have been “involved in drug-related activities, weapons, and associates involved in drug trafficking. “.
In Vancouver, Sukh Deo teamed up with the Independent Soldiers, one of roughly 160 gangs on the Lower Continent.
The independent soldiers were aligned with the wolf pack, along with some members of the Hells Angels and Red Scorpion gangs.
Sukh Deo’s associates included Larry Amero and James Riach, both original members of Wolfpack.
Amero, also a Hells Angel, and Riach, also an Independent Soldier, were attacked along with Red Scorpion leader Jon Bacon in an August 2011 shooting outside a Kelowna, BC resort.
Bacon was killed when gunmen sprayed his white Porsche Cayenne, while Amero was seriously injured and Riach escaped with minor injuries. A woman who was also in the Porsche was paralyzed.
That attack explained why some Wolfpack members moved out of BC in a hurry.
Amero settled for a time in a luxury condo in Montreal.
Riach moved to the Philippines, where he was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 for his role in a drug trafficking organization that police say was linked to a Mexican cartel.
Sukh Deo addressed the GTA.
Others from Wolfpack continue to move here, as the gang is connected more via the Internet than face-to-face meetings to keep in touch.
Sukh Deo’s murder made headlines in India in the “Hindustan Times”, which read “Gangster shot to death in Canada.”
The murder remains unsolved.
Reference-www.thestar.com