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(KIM ANDERSON / iNFOnews.ca)

B.C.’s anti-gang agency is warning of a relatively new group of criminals who go by the name, Brothers Keepers.

In a press release sent out Tuesday, July 21, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit said the Brother’s Keepers first emerged within the B.C.’s gang landscape in 2017 and were immediately in direct conflict with rival gangs such as the Red Scorpions, the Wolfpack, the Hells Angels, the United Nations, and other individuals and groups.

“This conflict resulted in violence manifesting on streets and in communities across the province,” reads the release.

In early 2018, CFESU-BC began to monitor and co-ordinate the provincewide investigative efforts into the Brothers Keepers. Through their efforts, they learned that the gang is made up of approximately a dozen core members, each with criminal affiliations, networks and cells of varying sizes. Their network includes about 194 people.

In all, 259 collective law enforcement interdictions have taken place on gang members and affiliates across 21 jurisdictions in the province.

These interdictions range from motor vehicle act offences to advanced organized crime projects, the CFSEU release stated.

Over 30 kilograms of suspected fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine have been seized.

The CFSEU-BC’s researchers and intelligence analysts are analyzing the information captured since the creation of the task force.

The data indicates there has been a 38.5 per cent decrease in combined gang-related homicides and attempted homicides from Jan 2017 to Dec 2019.

“Criminal groups and gangs like the Brothers Keepers continue to try and expand their illicit activities throughout the province and beyond B.C.’s borders. While the combined efforts thus far have resulted in the Brothers Keepers being significantly disrupted, we remain determined to continue our targeting of their, and other criminal networks, illegal activities,” assistant commissioner Michael LeSage, CFSEU-BC’s chief officer, said in the release.

“Over the course of the past two years, numerous RCMP jurisdictions and municipal police agencies have been in collaboration with, and supported by, CFSEU-BC. A co-ordinated, integrated, and strategic approach to disrupting the potentially tragic and devastating impacts of their crimes, with deadly drugs like fentanyl, is critical to our collective efforts of keeping our communities safe.”

The CFSEU-BC said Brothers Keepers have continued their operations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic despite the restrictions that have been put in place around travel and non-essential work.

The Brothers Keepers Task Force will continue to conduct and assist other agencies with co-ordinating intelligence and investigations. Several investigations by CFSEU-BC and its partner agencies are at various stages and the CFSEU-BC and other agencies will announce charges and results specific to those investigations at the appropriate time.

The Brothers Keepers network in B.C.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / CFSEU-BC

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