Crime spree lands accused murderers behind bars

Three men have been sentenced to jail terms for a commercial robbery spree in southern Manitoba launched just two weeks after they were accused of killing a 19-year-old man in Abbotsford, B.C.

Twenty-two-year-old Ravdeep Gill of Winnipeg, pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of robbery and Harmandeep Gill, 27, of Brampton, Ont. and Jaskaran Singh, 21, of Surrey, B.C., each pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery for a 10-day crime blitz that targeted gas bars in Swan Lake, Teulon and St. Laurent, and a meat shop in Winnipeg.

Ravdeep Gill was sentenced to four years custody while Harmandeep Gill and Singh each received sentences of 30 months.

According to B.C. media reports, all three men are charged with first-degree murder in a Feb. 1, 2025 killing in Abbotsford that police there described as a targeted hit.

The men were already in custody for the robbery spree when they and two other men were arrested for murder in August 2025.

Ravdeep Gill, Harmandeep Gill and Singh have no prior criminal records in Canada or their native India and face deportation upon completing their sentences, be it for the robberies or for the murder, if convicted.

Court heard the crime spree started Feb. 7 in Teulon, where Ravdeep Gill and three other masked men armed with imitation handguns, a baseball bat and a crowbar entered a Super 7 Esso gas bar and demanded cash and cigarettes from a lone female clerk, Crown attorney Kristee Logan told King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne.

The men tried to open a store safe, failed, and then fled in a blue Mercedes.

In the days that followed Ravdeep Gill and various accused robbed a gas bar in Swan Lake First Nation and a meat market on Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg. On Feb. 14, Ravdeep Gill, three other masked men and a driver pulled up to the Petro-Canada station outside St. Laurent shortly after 4 a.m. As they had done three times before, the masked men threatened staff with imitation handguns and other weapons before fleeing with cash and merchandise.

It was at this point police in Winnipeg received information from RCMP that allowed them to link the rural robberies to the Selkirk Avenue robbery, Logan said.

Police linked the suspects and the Mercedes vehicle to two addresses on Marbury Road. The next day, police followed the three suspects and another man, Dilpreet Sekhon, as they drove the Mercedes and a Tesla vehicle to a Tesla charging station in Portage la Prairie. There, police watched as the four men stole a licence plate from a parked car.

The men drove to Waywayseecappo First Nation, stopped at a gas bar and bought a few items, and drove to Brandon. There they changed clothes, got back into their vehicles and drove back to Waywayseecappo.

Police alerted gas bar staff who locked the doors before the robbers arrived.

Police pulled over both vehicles and arrested the four men.

Sekhon pleaded guilty Monday to one charge of theft and was sentenced to six months probation.

The sentences for all four men were jointly recommended by Crown and defence lawyers in a plea bargain that took into account weaknesses in the Crown’s case, including identity and search warrant issues.

“The offences are horrendous (and) would have been terrifying to the victims,” said Ravdeep Gill’s lawyer Paul Gill. “These aren’t experiences people recover from readily, if ever.”

Gill said his client and cohorts were motivated by greed and their actions driven by a “pack mentality.”

Ravdeep Gill came to Canada on a work visa and worked for a time in construction in B.C. before the jobs dried up,Paul Gill said.

Ravdeep Gill’s parents are still in India and have “struggled mightily” with the impact of what he has done, his lawyer said.

“He’s thrown whatever life he had right out the door,” he said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca