{"id":130501,"date":"2025-09-09T05:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T05:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130501\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T05:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T05:53:09","slug":"rcmp-announce-three-men-charged-for-canadian-gangsters-2022-jailbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130501\/","title":{"rendered":"RCMP announce three men charged for Canadian gangster\u2019s 2022 jailbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

The RCMP say a B.C. man and two men from Ottawa have been charged in the 2022 jailbreak of one of Canada\u2019s most wanted gangsters.<\/p>\n

At a Monday news conference in their British Columbia headquarters, Mounties said Ottawa\u2019s Edward Ayoub and John Potvin, both nearly 50, had been charged along with Ryan Van Gool, from the small Fraser Valley community of Harrison Hot Springs, east of Vancouver, with prison breach and conspiracy.<\/p>\n

The trio are accused of facilitating the brazen breakout of Rabih Alkhalil<\/a> from a jail in Port Coquitlam, B.C., three years ago while he was on trial for the first-degree murder of a rival.<\/p>\n

Mr. Alkhalil, 38, is Canada\u2019s third-most wanted fugitive, according a national law enforcement program known as Bolo. He was convicted of the 2012 murder of his rival inside a busy downtown Vancouver hotel restaurant. He was also convicted in the daytime gangland slaying<\/a> of a rival drug trafficker inside a crowded caf\u00e9 in Toronto\u2019s Little Italy, also in 2012.<\/p>\n

He was on trial for the Vancouver slaying when he broke out of jail in 2022.<\/p>\n

RCMP declined to confirm reports over the weekend from The Vancouver Sun and Global News that Mr. Alkhalil had recently been arrested in Qatar, which does not have an extradition treaty with Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that there is a high level of public and media interest in this case, and like we\u2019ve said, we cannot confirm at this time that he has been arrested,\u201d said Sergeant Tammy Lobb, a spokesperson for the federal Mounties in B.C. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs your federal police agency and the RCMP, we have channels and systems in place when people have left the country and they are wanted, but in this case we cannot confirm with you today that he has been arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Alkhalil was raised in Surrey, B.C., and according to the Interpol red notice on him, speaks English, Arabic, and French. He has fled abroad before. <\/p>\n

After the 2012 murders in Vancouver and Toronto, he was arrested the following year in Athens when he was pulled over for a traffic violation. He was later extradited back to Canada. <\/p>\n

In 2014, the RCMP told The Globe and Mail<\/a> that Mr. Alkhalil and other Canadian gangsters had bought bogus travel documents from a master forger in Gatineau.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Lobb said Monday she didn\u2019t know whether Mr. Alkhalil, whose family arrived in Canada in 1990 as Palestinian refugees living in Saudi Arabia, had a valid passport when he escaped from the jail.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 3, an indictment was submitted in Vancouver accusing the three men of breaking Mr. Alkhalil out of jail. Information provided by the B.C Prosecution Service shows police allege the three planned their conspiracy from Vancouver and Langley in the two weeks leading up to the daring escape.<\/p>\n

In that escape from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre, Mr. Alkhalil was caught on security cameras escaping with two people posing as contractors at the jail and then getting away in a white van.<\/p>\n

Initially, the local RCMP detachment handled the case. A year later, the regional gang squad took over and, six months after that, reached out to federal Mounties to help steer a joint investigation.<\/p>\n

At one time, the RCMP were offering a reward of up to $250,000 and have since reduced that to $50,000 for a public tip that leads to the arrest of Mr. Alkhalil, who once lived in Montreal and whose three brothers have been gunned down.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Lobb said that during the investigation into his breakout, police uncovered evidence that has led to other charges against Mr. Van Gool and two other men, Bryce and Scott Telford of Surrey, involving a 2024 murder conspiracy.<\/p>\n

She said this investigation helped avert a hit in Kamloops, B.C.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Lobb said all are in custody except Mr. Potvin, who is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant.<\/p>\n

With a report from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The RCMP say a B.C. man and two men from Ottawa have been charged in the 2022 jailbreak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-130501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}