Yuvraj Goyal hit the pavement dead as can be mere minutes after speaking with his mother.
The end in a Surrey, B.C., parking lot just before 9 a.m. last Friday appeared targeted, cops suggested.
Now, they’re not so sure. Targeted, yes. Wrong guy, probably.
The 28-year-old victim — a car salesman — had no criminal history and zero ties to the underworld factions battling for control of the B.C. rackets.
It’s more likely that Goyal was the victim of mistaken identity and a complete innocent.
But was he also the latest victim of a tit-for-tat underworld settling of accounts that have left the streets running with blood across the country and revealing the alarming binational connections between B.C. mobsters and arch-criminals in Alberta and Ontario?
Homicide detectives quickly arrested four men and charged them with first-degree murder.
Charged are Manvir Basram, 23, Sahib Basra, 20, Harkirat Jhutty, 23, all residents of Surrey, and Toronto rapper Keyzie, real name Keilon Francois, 20. None of the charges have been proven in court. Police have not alleged the accused were linked to gangs, but said they will be investigating whether they have ties to gangs.
If the accused were involved in the shooting and it is gang related, then what is a Toronto rapper doing getting busted in a B.C. hit? Well …
Once upon a time, gangs pretty much stuck to their turf. The noted exception was the enforcement arm of the American underworld, Murder Inc., who were kind of like a U.S. Marshals for gangsters.
Author, organized crime expert and Queen’s University professor Antonio Nicaso spelled it out for the Toronto Sun following the $20-million Pearson airport gold heist in 2023. He used B.C. as an example.
“In British Columbia, the Wolfpack and the UN Gang (both multicultural to a tee) are linked to other Indo-Canadian organized crime groups, who are linked to the Hells Angels,” Nicaso told the Sun.
“These alliances are extremely important, particularly if you throw in the Mexican cartels. This is what we should expect in the future of organized crime … more the idea of a hybrid criminal organization.”
Edmonton gangster Harpreet Singh Uppal, 41, was gunned down at an Edmonton gas station last November. The killers also murdered Uppal’s son Gavin, 11. Police allege that both were targeted for death.
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Uppal was a criminal bright light as the branch manager of the Brothers Keepers gang.
Four days later, scumbag Parmvir Chahil, 27, would follow. Chahil — who notoriously battered a man with autism at Square One — was taken off the board last November in a downtown Toronto parking garage.
That brought a satisfying conclusion to a life of dirtbaggery. Homicide detectives hastened to add that this was not mistaken identity. Chahil was a longtime member of the Brothers Keepers’ rivals, the UN Gang.
Coincidence? Highly unlikely.
In early March, Brothers Keeper member Jasmit Badesha, 25, of B.C., was clipped outside a Rexdale apartment building where he was holed up. In the Lower Mainland criminal milieu, Badesha went by the street name Drilldoc, which was also his nom du rap.
And Yuvraj Goyal? He will never see his 26th birthday.
“He came back from his gym, (his) daily routine, and he stepped out of his car and he was shot,” his brother-in-law told Global News. “I can’t believe it has happened. It is difficult … we are in shock. It is a loss that can never be filled.
“He stepped out of his car, said goodnight to his mom back in India, then he was shot.”
If Goyal’s killing turns out to be gang related, then the summer ahead seems to be poised to be hot, ugly and violent in gangland.
X: @HunterTOSun