The Brothers Keepers is an organized crime group based in British Columbia, Canada, that is engaged in organized crime across Canada and abroad. Originating in the Greater Vancouver area, the group has expanded across Canada since its founding and has established relationships with other transnational organized crime groups.
The Brothers Keepers are believed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia to be among the most 'prominent and violent' gangs in B.C.
History Origins The Brothers Keepers were founded in 2016 by Gavinder Singh Grewal and an unnamed dozen or so other founders who remain as the core members, with most of the gang's membership and leadership made up of former Red Scorpions members and leadership. The dozen or so core founding members act as leaders of the group, each with their own Cell in their control, their own criminal affiliations and territories of varying sizes. Grewal was rumoured to have taken the gang's name from a line uttered by Wesley Snipes’ gangster character in the 1991 movie New Jack City.
Assassination of Cetin Koç Founding Brothers Keepers member Harpreet Singh Majhu and Orosman Jr. Garcia-Arevalo, who operated under the Kang faction of the gang, were hired to take out Iranian-born Turkish drug kingpin Cetin Koç in Dubai. On May 4, 2016, Majhu and Garcia-Arevalo ambushed Koç as he was sitting in a vehicle in downtown Dubai. Koç was shot nine times with two silenced pistols and was killed instantly. Majhu and Garcia-Areval then boarded a flight out of Dubai, departing before they were named suspects by the Dubai Police Force. Both men were murdered shortly after the assassination. On May 11, 2016, Garcia-Arevalo was found dead in a blueberry field outside of Abbotsford. On June 10, 2016, Majhu was found dead in a burned-out vehicle just outside of Agassiz, British Columbia.
Death of Gavinder Singh Grewal Brothers Keepers founder Gavinder Singh Grewal was found shot dead in his North Vancouver penthouse, after his body was discovered by his visiting brother Mandeep on December 22, 2017. Police believed this murder was in retaliation for the murders of several Red Scorpion leaders in the months prior, such as Red Scorpion gang founder Konaam Shirzad, Randeep "Randy" Kang of the Kang crime family and Ibrahim Amjad Ibrahim. The Grewal murder remains unsolved; however, police released surveillance footage and alleged that the suspects were a South Asian man approximately 20 to 25 years old and wearing a black jacket and a white shirt and the other was described as South Asian, 25 to 30 years old, with a beard and wearing a toque and a dark jacket.
In 2019, drill rapper Lolo Lanski (Ekene Anigbo) released a diss track titled "DEDMAN" in which he taunts the Brothers Keepers and the deceased Gavinder Grewal. One section of the song features excerpts from the 911 call made by Gavinder's brother after finding his body. Vancouver Police launched an investigation to discover how Anigbo acquired the 911 recording. Anigbo is associated with the Kang crime family, a historic enemy of the Brothers Keepers.
Conflicts with other gangs The Brothers Keepers are currently in conflict with the United Nations gang as well as the coalition of the Red Scorpions gang and Kang crime family, which is also known as the BIBO (Blood In Blood Out) gang.
29-year-old Birinderjeet Justin “B Man” Bhangu, a well-known Brothers Keepers and Wolfpack gangster, was gunned down on March 13, 2017, in the parking lot of a Surrey Comfort Inn hotel. He is believed to be the first Brother's Keeper targeted by a rival gang. Days earlier, on March 9, leading Red Scorpions Navdip Sanghera, 32, and Harjit Singh Mann, 49, were shot to death in East Vancouver in a hit authorities at the time speculated may have caused the killing of Birinderjeet four days later. Navdip Sanghera had been a member of the Sanghera crime family and was close with the Bacon Brothers.
Matthew Navas-Rivas was on the annual Brothers Keepers yacht cruise around the Vancouver waterfront just days before he was shot to death on July 25, 2018. He and his crew of Troy McKinnon and Cody Sleigh were Independent Soldiers members, who, along with the rest of the Independent Soldiers gang and the Wolfpack alliance, would become rivals with the Red Scorpions and BIBO gang while aligning themselves with the Brothers Keepers gang. Troy McKinnon and Cody Sleigh were also found gunned down on January 15, 2018, and July 21, 2020, respectively. On January 20, 2021, Kang crime family (BIBO gang) member and Red Scorpion Dyllan “Pistol P” Petrin was arrested for the murder of Independent Soldier Cody Sleigh.
On October 18, 2018, Mandeep Grewal, brother of Brothers Keepers founder Gavinder Grewal, was shot dead in front of a bank in Abbotsford. Mandeep was not involved in the criminal lifestyle, according to the police and had no criminal record, according to the Vancouver Sun; he was considered an innocent victim in the gang War.
On February 1, 2019, Bikramjit "Bicky" Khakh was gunned down in Surrey. He was a former associate of notorious Punjabi Mafia co-leader Manny Buttar. He was with a friend and fellow Brothers Keepers gangster, Harb Dhaliwal, when the two were shot at in Richmond on December 21, 2018.
On September 10, 2019, a high-profile Red Scorpion who had been convicted of helping his gang mates and brother destroy evidence in the Surrey Six Massacre case was shot to death outside an Aldergrove fast-food restaurant in Langley. His brother Cody Haevischer was convicted in the Surrey Six murders. Justin Lee Haevischer, 33, was believed to have been blasted by two different shooters outside of a McDonald's at 264th Street and 56th Avenue about 8 p.m. Police who viewed the video of Justin Haevischer's execution said it was disturbing and traumatizing, according to the Vancouver Sun. Red Scorpions gang leader Jamie Bacon would blame the Brothers Keepers gang for his murder, according to a leaked audio file, as per the Vancouver Sun.
On January 7, 2021, Anees Mohammed, a drug dealer associated with both the Brothers Keepers and Wolfpack Alliance, who had once been associated with the rival Dhak crime group and notorious Dhak group gangster Jujhar Singh Khunkhun almost a decade before, was murdered in a shooting in Richmond. Police suspect that the shooting was retaliation for the murder of one of the Kang crime family's leading figures, Gary Kang, the day prior.
On April 17, 2021, Brothers Keepers member Harpreet "Harb" Singh Dhaliwal was gunned down outside Cardero's restaurant on April 17, 2021. Harb Dhaliwal's brother, Meninder and another man allegedly chased the assailant, stabbing him in the eye. The assailant, Francois Gauthier, was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2022. Police at the time suspected that in retaliation for the Dhaliwal murder, high-level UN gangster Todd Gouwenberg, 46, was fatally shot 3 days later on April 20, 2021, at about 9 a.m. as he arrived to work out at the Langley Sportsplex in Langley.
Brothers Jaskeert Singh Kalkat and Gurkeert Singh Kalkat were murdered only nine days apart in May 2021. Jaskeert was a prime suspect in the murder of United Nations gang member Karman Singh Grewal at Vancouver International Airport on May 10, 2021. Two days before the killing of Gurkeert Kalkat, a former affiliate of the Brothers Keepers who left with the Kang faction was gunned down in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Yasin Khan was a BIBO gang and Red Scorpion member and was believed to be targeted by the Brothers Keepers.
On February 8, 2022, Brothers Keepers member Juvraj Singh Jabal, 24, and a woman in the car with him, later identified as Jasmine Lindstrom, 20, were shot. Juvraj succumbed to his injuries on February 10, while Lindstrom survived. His murder was suspected retaliation for the killing of United Nations gang member Jimi "Slice" Sandhu, who was shot at a villa in Phuket, Thailand, days earlier. Almost two years later, in January 2024, Jabal's alleged killer, Yusuf Kontos,24, of Ontario, was arrested. Former Canadian army corporal Matthew Dupre would be extradited to Thailand and convicted for the killing of Sandhu in 2024.
Meninder Dhaliwal was shot dead alongside Satindera Gill, who was identified as Meninder's friend who was not involved in the gangster lifestyle, according to authorities. Both were ambushed and shot dead in Whistler in July 2022. A week before the murder of Meninder Dhaliwal and his friend Satindera Gill on July 14, the body of longtime UN gangster Christopher Irwin was found in Burnaby. He had been targeted twice in previous months but survived both attempts on his life. Police believed the Brothers Keepers gang had targeted him. Meninder Dhaliwal was the second main suspect, along with Jaskeert Kalkat as the men who murdered Karman Grewal, according to police sources. Meninder's alleged killers, Gursimran Sahota and Tanvir Khak, were apprehended by the RCMP within a couple of hours. One of them, Gursimran Sahota, had close ties to Karman. Both Sahota and Tanvir Khak are alleged UN members.
On September 12, 2022, Brothers Keepers member Sameh Ali “S Man” Mohammed was gunned down in Brampton, Ontario. Police speculated that Mohammed's killing was retaliation for the murder of United Nations gang member Arman Singh Dhillon in Oakville the month prior. On April 6, 2023, Halton Regional Police Service announced three arrests in the murder of Arman Dhillon. Three alleged Brothers Keepers affiliates, Karnveer Singh Sandhu, 29, of Edmonton, Joseph Richard Whitlock, 30, of Pickering and Kulvir Singh Bhatia, 25, of Calgary, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder. However, in a dramatic turn of events, a judge on October 24, 2025, ordered a stay of proceedings and effectively dismissed the first-degree murder and attempted murder charges against Kulvir Bhatia, Joseph Richard Whitlock and Karnveer Sandhu, citing egregious misconduct by staff at Maplehurst Correctional Complex that undermined the integrity of the prosecution's case.
Two long-time United Nations gangsters and brothers were gunned down 2 months apart in 2023. Amarpreet "Chucky" Samra was killed in the early hours of Sunday, May 28, outside a wedding he was leaving. Ravinder "Robby" Samra was gunned down on Thursday, July 27, 2023, outside one of his Richmond homes. Police suspected the killers of both gangsters to belong to the Brothers Keepers gang, according to the Vancouver Sun.
The high-profile killing of Harpreet “Harp” Uppal in Edmonton, along with his 11-year-old son Gavin, who was an innocent bystander in 2023, made national headlines in Canada as the killing of an innocent child was condemned and as it also outlined the national reach of the BC gang conflict as the killing was suspected to be retaliation for the killing of United Nations gangster Parmvir Chahil in Toronto the day before. Edmonton police would confirm that Harp Uppal was a "high-level organized crime figure in Alberta" and that he was closely associated with the Brothers Keepers.
On January 20, 2024, UN gangster Amritpal "Amrit" Saran, who had been involved in a 2020 gang shootout, was gunned down in his vehicle in the underground parking garage of the Seven Oaks shopping Centre in Abbotsford. On January 23, 2024, Red Scorpion gangster and Kang crime family member Johnson "BIBO Buddha" Viet Anh Do was shot dead in Burnaby. Both Amritpal and Johnson were believed by police to be targeted by the Brothers Keepers.
In January 2024, Brothers Keepers-affiliated rapper T-Sav (Tyrel Nguyen) was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of Kang crime family member Randeep "Randy" Kang and, in another case, university student Jagvir Singh Malhi, whose death is suspected to be a case of mistaken identity.