Former Abbotsford gang leader Jimi Sandhu was gunned down in Thailand on Friday (Feb. 4), according to media reports from the country.
The reports state that Sandhu, 32, was killed while getting out of his car at a beachside resort in Rawai, Phuket, where he apparently owned a villa.
Rawai is a village on the southeast coast of Thailand’s Phuket Island.
Chalong Police told the media that a maid found Sandhu’s body lying next to his vehicle, and two gunmen were seen on CCTV footage firing up to 20 shots at close range eight hours earlier.
Neighbours thought the sound was firecrackers being set off for Chinese New Year.
Police also said Sandhu was carrying two IDs in different names, but confirmed that he was the victim of the attack.
Sandhu, who moved to Canada from India at the age of seven after his grandmother adopted him, was one of three men who were the subject of a public warning by the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) in 2015.
The APD said at the time that Sandhu, along with Sandeep Sidhu and Gavin Grewal, posed a “significant harm to the safety of the community and anyone who may associate with them.”
The three men were described as having “a criminal lifestyle that includes violence, drugs and weapons.”
Grewal – who was gunned down in December 2017 in a North Vancouver apartment – was identified by former Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich, in an interview with the Abbotsford News, as the leader of one of two rival gangs in the community.
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Sandhu and Sidhu were identified by Rich as the leaders of the other gang, although Rich didn’t name the gangs.
Sandu was previously convicted for beating a man with a brick outside of a pub and later using brass knuckles to threaten someone he believed had stolen money from him.
He was charged in January 2014 with second-degree murder in the killing of Red Scorpions gangster Matt Campbell, who staggered into a Fraser Valley Auto Mall business bleeding profusely from a stab wound to his neck.
But charges were later dropped against Sandhu, due to what Crown counsel said was an unlikelihood of conviction.
RELATED: Charges stayed in January 2014 killing of Matt Campbell
At a deportation hearing in late 2015, Sandhu argued that he should be permitted to remain in Canada because he had changed his life and had moved to a different province away from negative influences.
He said he was in a stable marriage, had stopped drinking, was attending AA meetings, and was gainfully employed.
However, the judge ruled in January 2016 that Sandhu should be deported for “serious criminality” because it had not been established in court that Sandhu was involved in any “regulated, ongoing program” that was “likely to generate positive rehabilitative outcomes.”
In 2018, Sandhu was arrested for allegedly running a drug operation in India. He was the alleged factory owner and one of the key players involved in the manufacturing of the drug ketamine, as well as hash, cocaine and opium.
Investigators in India at the time said they had dismantled four manufacturing facilities that were controlled by an international drug syndicate with close ties to southeast Asia and Canada.
RELATED: Former Abbotsford gangster arrested for drug operation in India
vhopes@abbynews.com
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