Fugitive killed in Sioux Lookout plane crash was suspected international hit man and dog breeder

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This article was published 04/05/2022 (1592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A suspected international hit man who died in a plane crash in northern Ontario last week was a former member of the Canadian military who bred purebred dogs when not allegedly killing for hire.

Crash victim Gene Karl Lahrkamp, 36, of Trail, B.C., offered special discounts on his Belgian Malinois pups to buyers with police and military backgrounds.

When he died in the crash near Sioux Lookout last week, he was on the run from the Royal Thailand Police for the Feb. 4 gangland-style murder of former B.C. gangster Jimi (Slice) Sandhu in Thailand, the police Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C. (CFSEU-B.C.) confirmed.

A notice by the international police agency Interpol had warned that Lahrkamp might be armed and dangerous, as well as potentially suicidal.

Also wanted for Sandhu’s murder was Mathew Dupre, 36, another former member of the Canadian military who was allegedly involved in gang activity.

Dupre was arrested in Edmonton on Feb. 20.

Lahrkamp was a relative newcomer to the underworld, said a former member of the United Nations gang who became a co-operating witness after being charged with murder, murder conspiracy and attempted murder.

He said Lahrkamp might have been considered suicidal because he didn’t want to be convicted in Thailand, where the death penalty is enforced.

“I want to know who sent those guys to do that,” the former UN gang member said, adding that it was highly unusual for someone to be sent outside the country to kill someone if they were not experienced.

“You don’t just do your first murder in a foreign country,” the former UN gang member said, asking not to be named.

Lahrkamp, 36, was killed on April 30 along with three others when a Piper PA-28 Cherokee plane crashed near Sioux Lookout in northwestern Ontario.

The Ontario Provincial Police said that the others killed in the crash were Duncan Bailey, 37, from Kamloops, B.C., pilot Abhinav Handa, 26, of Richmond, B.C. and a fourth person, whose name has been withheld pending notification of the victim’s family.

Bailey also had gang ties and was an active drug dealer, according to the former gang member. Bailey was free on bail after being hit with a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

The former UN gang member said he found it odd that Bailey was on the same plane as Lahrkamp, since they had been on different sides in an ongoing gang war.

“The dynamics change really quick,” he said.

The private flight crashed en route from Dryden, Ont. to Marathon, Ont.

The CFSEU said in a prepared statement that Lahrkamp and Dupre both fled from Thailand to Canada after Sandu’s murder.

Sandhu was a member of the United Nations gang, which is locked in an ongoing war with a collection of gangs called the Wolfpack Alliance.

The Wolfpack Alliance began in B.C. but it has a GTA connection. Members of the Wolfpack Alliance were convicted of the June 2013 murder of Johnny Raposo of Toronto on a College St. patio while Raposo watched a soccer game on a big-screen TV.

B.C. corporate records show Lahrkamp was the sole owner of Mountain Mals of Trail, B.C., which was incorporated in July 2020 with the purpose of being a “Guide outfitter, Belgian Malinois Breeder.”

Lahrkamp held the rank of corporal when he left the military, after serving from 2012 to 2018.

Dupre, 36, was in the Canadian military from 2005 to 2013 and was also a corporal.

On April 26, the police Be On The Lookout (BOLO) program identified Lahrkamp as No. 2 on their “Top 25” most wanted individuals in Canada, offering a $100,000 reward leading to his arrest.

Lahrkamp and Dupre were accused by Thai police of being the hooded gunmen who shot 32-year-old Sandhu dead while he was getting out of his red sports car at 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 4 at his beachfront villa in Rawai on the island of Phuket.

Thai police told the South China Morning Post that Sandhu’s killers tracked him down by using a GPS device attached to his car.

Sandhu was a former B.C. resident who was deported from Canada for serious criminality in 2016. He was nicknamed “Slice” because of a prominent scar on his face.

Sandhu had also been charged with second-degree murder for stabbing Red Scorpion rival Matt Campbell to death in 2014, but the charge was eventually dropped.

Thai police said they used a metal detector to recover two 9 mm handguns from the sea off Phuket.

The Thai Examiner reported that Sandhu had been “living a life of affluence travelling between Dubai and Southeast Asia” at the time of his murder.

Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: pedwards@thestar.ca