Two men are dead after a brazen Monday morning shooting at the Executive Hotel and Conference Centre at 4201 Lougheed Hwy.
Sgt. Jennifer Pound of the RCMP's integrated homicide investigation team confirmed at a Monday afternoon press conference that two men, one a Caucasian and the second an Indo-Canadian, died after sustaining gunshot wounds just before 11: 30 a.m. Monday.
The Vancouver Sun's Kim Bolan received confirmation Monday from sources in both law enforcement and organized crime that the victims were gangster Sukh Dhak and his bodyguard Thomas Mantel.
Both men were well-known to police and those involved in the B.C. gang scene.
Dhak, 28, was currently on trial in B.C. Supreme Court for conspiracy and trafficking ecstasy back in 2008. The trial had been adjourned until Nov. 27.
Mantel, 30, was due in Surrey Provincial Court in January for charges of dangerous driving and obstructing a police officer laid in 2010 after an encounter with the gang task force.
The burly, tattooed Mantel would often escort the diminutive Dhak through the Vancouver Law Courts, walking with him from the parking lot to the sixth floor where Dhak's trial was held.
When the pair arrived at the security gate with an X-ray machine and metal detector, Dhak would go through, while Mantel would leave before he could be screened.
Monday's shooting at the business hotel located along a busy Burnaby thoroughfare was a shocking incident that traumatized the hotel staff on duty.
The hotel was behind police tape for most of Monday, with yellow tarps covering the bodies. One of the tarps was in the main lobby area of the hotel while the second was to the right, closer to the entrance to the hotel restaurant and a walkway to the hotel pool.
Joe Ennis, director of hotel services for the Executive Hotel, was summoned from his downtown office just after 11: 30 a.m. to deal with the situation.
"Staff are in a state of shock," said Ennis. "We can say that guests are still being allowed to come and go and as far as we know, everybody else is OK."
Ennis said he didn't know what connection the two victims had to the hotel, but that's something the police were looking into.
Pound said that police, fire and ambulance paramedics attended the scene shortly after 11: 30 a.m. and all attempts to revive the men were unsuccessful.
Pound also said that the shootings appear to be targeted, and on Tuesday morning, confirmed that Dhak and Mantel were the victims.
Police may be looking for a third person involved in the shooting, as Pound said police believe "somebody else left the scene."
"It's miraculous that nobody else got hurt," said Pound. "This happened in broad daylight. It's brazen. It's cold. . We have many, many investigators looking into this."
Dhak's death is eerily similar to two other recent gangster deaths.
Dhak's brother Gurmit was gunned down outside Burnaby's Metrotown Mall in October 2010 in another daylight execution.
And on Jan. 16, 2012, Duhre gang leader Sandip Duhre was shot to death in front of guests and hotel staff in the lobby of the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver.
The violence against Dhak and associates in the Duhre crime group escalated after the August 2011 murder of Red Scorpion gangster Jon Bacon and wounding of Hells Angel Larry Amero and Independent Soldier James Riach.
