Advertisement

Two Calgary men guilty of drug, gun charges after gang investigation

Two Calgary men guilty of drug, gun charges after gang investigation

A massive organized crime investigation that produced 6.6 million pages of information and was connected to what Calgary police defined as a "gang war" on city streets has resulted in two men being convicted of a dozen charges involving guns and drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, lawyers for Ziad Mohamed Jeha and Ibrahim Said Borhot and the Crown proposed a six-year prison sentence after giving two years credit for the time they've served in custody and for living under strict bail conditions.

Originally, the two men faced 32 charges stemming from the large-scale, 10-month organized crime investigation involving Calgary police, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team, the RCMP, as well as the Canada Border Services Agency.

During the investigation, police secured wiretaps on 23 phone lines, executed 21 warrants, utilized 18 confidential informants and consulted CBSA intelligence reports.

In 2015, a turf battle over drugs blew up into a gang war on Calgary's streets with double the number of shootings taking place over the previous year, many attributed to organized crime, according to police back then.

At that time, the connections between the gang members was often defined by family relations, with brothers and cousins often working together, or sometimes, against each other.

Police identified the suspected gangsters as mostly young men of Middle Eastern descent.

Initially, Jeha and Borhot were also facing organized crime-related offences. Those charges will be withdrawn by prosecutors Scott Couper and Kirsten Janis at the next court appearance, after negotiations with defence lawyers Alain Hepner, Pawel Milczarek and Gavin Wolch.

Jeha and Borhot's crimes took place in late 2015 and early 2016, during which time "Borhot acted as a middleman for Jeha in negotiating the purchase of firearms," according to the agreed statement of facts.

"There was an agreement between them that they would traffic methamphetamine to the seller as a payment for the firearms."

In December 2015, investigators used an X-ray machine on Jeha's SUV while it was parked in his condo building's underground parkade. Police spotted a loaded gun in a hidden compartment in the back hatch of the truck.

The SUV was towed to a police facility where they continued to examine it.

Later that day, Jeha was caught on a wiretap expressing his concern to Borhot about his missing vehicle and the "eighty k" lost inside.

Guns 'for assassins'

In the recording, Jeha says he suspects police made a key for the SUV but continues openly discussing the hidden compartment inside the truck.

The next day, police seized three guns and 2½ kilos of meth worth about $100,000 from the hidden compartment.

The two men are also caught on wiretaps in the following months talking about hiding guns and selling guns. In once instance, Borhot talks about selling a gun "used for assassins."

"These things are illegal, you can't buy them anywhere," he tells an acquaintance in January 2016.

After Jeha was arrested at his home, he was unaware police had already found a loaded handgun in his bathroom.

While in police custody, Jeha spoke with an uncle on the phone, asking him to check under the bathroom sink to see if police had discovered the gun.

Defence still want case tossed

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Corina Dario will sentence the men in March, giving them time to prepare to apply for bail pending an appeal of another judge's decision to refuse to toss out all charges.

In January, Justice David Labrenz refused to stay Jeha and Borhot's charges after defence lawyers argued their rights to be tried within a reasonable time were violated.

Labrenz found that, although the case had taken several months longer than the timeline set out by the Supreme Court of Canada, some of the delay was attributable to defence and some of the delay was justified based on the complexity of the prosecution.

Jeha and Borhot's trial was to begin last week but instead they signed a document agreeing to the facts of their crimes and inviting Dario to convict.

That unusual route — rather than a guilty plea — allows the pair to pursue an appeal of Labrenz's decision.