Fugitive Canadian Wolfpack Leader Robby Alkhalil Arrested in Qatar

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat
From a Vancouver Sun Article

More than three years after he escaped from a Port Coquitlam jail, fugitive gang killer Rabih "Robby" Alkhalil has been arrested in Qatar.

Several sources confirmed Saturday that the wanted Wolfpack gangster had been picked up by local authorities on Friday. The RCMP declined to comment. But a news conference is scheduled at the RCMP’s Surrey headquarters on Monday afternoon.

A $250,000 reward for information leading to Alkhalil’s arrest was initially offered by the BOLO program and Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers, over the years it was reduced to $50,000 and was due to expire Oct. 7.

According to an undercover informant, Rabih Alkhalil was responsible for cocaine imports with in the Wolfpack group. An alliance of street gang members and Hells Angels traffickers. Alkhalil's nicknames within the organization were Honda and Lambo (for Lamborghini).

Wolfpack Alliance Killings

Alkhalil escaped from the North Fraser pretrial jail in July 2022, a month before a Vancouver jury convicted him in absentia of first-degree murder in the 2012 slaying of a longtime rival, Sandip Duhre. He was also convicted of conspiring to kill Duhre, as well as gangster Sukh Dhak, who was gunned down in Burnaby in November 2012.

It was Alkhalil’s second murder conviction. He already was serving life for the June 2012 murder in Toronto of Johnny Raposo, who was shot to death as he watched soccer at a Little Italy café.

In 2017, an Ontario judge sentenced Alkhalil to life in prison for Raposo hit. He was also given a concurrent sentence of 20 years for conspiracy to commit murder. In 2020, in Quebec, Alkhalil was sentenced to eight years in prison for drug trafficking. A B.C. Supreme Court jury then convicted him in August 2022 in the Duhre murder and Dhak plot.

Escape from Vancouver Jail

On top of his murder, drug and conspiracy convictions, Alkhalil has also been charged with “forcible prison break” and “escape lawful custody” in connection with his July 21, 2022 disappearance.

There is an ongoing investigation into those who helped him escape. But no one has yet been charged. A search warrant was executed in the investigation last year at the business of a Hells Angel member.

Robby was captured on CCTV leaving North Fraser with two men posing as construction workers. They used a plasma torch to cut open a grate between an outdoor area that Alkhalil could access and the secure area from which he escaped. No one noticed he was gone until the next prisoner head count, 20 minutes later.

Police were not called until 42 minutes after Alkhalil left the grounds. No public announcement about the escape was made until almost four hours later. It was later determined that the photo IDs used by the two men were fake, having been downloaded online from a stock photo site based in India.

Alkhalil Family

Few families have had as much involvement with police across Canada as the Alkhalils. Displaced Palestinian refugees who came to Canada from Saudi Arabia in 1990, the family settled in Surrey. Robby’s older brothers started getting into trouble.

One of the brothers, Khalil Alkhalil, just 19, was shot to death in Surrey in January 2001. His killer, Michael Naud, said the shooting was self-defence. A jury acquitted Naud, but he was later gunned down in suspected retaliation.

In 2003, another brother, Mahmoud Alkhalil, died after a shooting at the Loft Six nightclub.

After the second murder, remaining family members resettled in Ottawa in 2004 to “start life afresh,” according to Federal Court documents filed for the unsuccessful appeal of a deportation order issued against Nabil Alkhalil another of Robby’s older brothers.

Nabil disappeared for several years, before resurfacing in Mexico. He was shot to death in August 2018 at a luxury car dealership in a suburb of Mexico City. He moved there from Vancouver in 2013 after he was threatened with deportation for cocaine trafficking and was seen as the gang's liaison to the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2015 he had been arrested in Colombia using a false passport, and resurfaced in Panama and back in Mexico City. He was shot and killed in 2018 following an argument with wealthy businessman Javier Armando Nuñez.

Robby and Hells Angel member Larry Amero.

Meanwhile, Robby Alkhalil’s co-accused in the Duhre murder, Hells Angel Larry Amero, is now serving a sentence of just over nine years after convictions for conspiracy in both the Duhre and Dhak plots. He has filed an appeal.

Sources Vancouver Sun