Langford Mayor Stew Young

Langford Mayor Stew Young’s salary will double and councillors’ pay will increase by more than 55% under a new remuneration scheme. The mayor’s annual salary will increase to $75,863 from $37,558 while pay for councillors will increase to $27,410 from $17,661 retroactive to Jan. 1. Stew Young has been mayor for 25 of the 26 years Langford has existed as a municipality. “I grew up through the shitty times.” mayor@langford.ca

Langford provides subdivision proposals within 30 days and 48-hour building permit approvals.

“I run the city like a business” says Young. There is a “let’s make a deal” quality. Langford eliminated building permit fees for residential construction and offers a 10-year tax holiday for new federal and provincial office space and rental accommodations.

“What some people call red tape, others view as regulations that uphold the public interest,” Isitt notes.

In June, Langford was sued by a provincial watchdog, after allowing a project to go through without an architect. A five-unit residential building was built with only a designer, something the Architectural Institute of B.C says is against the Province’s Architects Act, and can put the public at risk. "And for them to say it’s unsafe if Langford signs off… no I actually adhere to the building code. We have professionals, that’s what we do. [This is] basically a monopoly situation when every development in Langford has to have an architect,” said Young.

“I don’t want to be like everybody else,” Young says. “At the end, the job is to understand what the public wants and get it done.”

See ----->DB Services - 3rd world criminal builder for slumlords

DB Services - 6 new builds @ $84m

Six newly-built Langford apartment blocks built by DB Services were for sale at $84m in April 2018. There were three listings, two six-storey apartments at 777 Hockley Avenue were priced at $17.8m. An additional 86-units among three adjacent buildings on Hockley Avenue ranging between five and six-storeys tall.

The largest of the group was Danbrook One.

DB Services's Peatt Commons project is a six-storey, 63-unit purpose-built rental. Occupancy was granted in Railside House, a 60-unit, six-storey building off Goldstream Avenue. The 226-units had a valuation just under $372k.

See ----->DB Services - 3rd world criminal builder for slumlords - Update V

East End HA John Peter Bryce loses court battle

East End Hells Angels John Peter Bryce, 57, lost a court challenge over an investment gone bad. He argued that a mortgage broker deceived him about the value of a Chilliwack property before he agreed to second and third mortgages. The property was eventually foreclosed upon, with Bryce losing $202k on his investment. The judge ruled Bryce should have done his own due diligence before agreeing to lend $750k, with interest rates up to 18% a year for the two mortgages.

2 Harlem church leaders sent to prison in fraud scheme

Jermaine Grant

Leaders of a church that drew attention for its anti-Jewish views were sentenced to prison. Jermaine Grant, the leader of the New York-based Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, received 18 months and treasurer Lincoln Warrington was sentenced to 12. The two funneled more than $5.3m through an entertainment company, and used it for private school tuition, a trip to Disneyland and luxury purchases.

The Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ. Both men pleaded guilty last year.

Grant, known as 'Chief High Priest Tazadaqyah' created the company "in order to portray Grant as an entertainment industry mogul." The Harlem-based Church of God in Jesus Christ is a black nationalist hate group. Part of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, it preaches that blacks are among the lost tribes of Israel.

El Chapo tunnel master 'Quirino' busted

José Sánchez Villalobos 'Quirino' was indicted by federal court in 2012. He was the brains behind two state-of-the-art tunnels found in November 2010 and 2011. The passageways linked the cities of Tijuana on the Mexican side and San Diego on the U.S. side. As well as designing and building tunnels, Villalobos was said to have been in charge of deciding who could use them for a fee.

Villalobos stands accused of masterminding a 560-metre tunnel found in Nov 2010. It had its own rail tracks, and connected a warehouse in San Diego to a similar one in Tijuana. It could only be entered in Mexico via a hydraulics-powered steel door, and even had an elevator hidden under the floor of the warehouse.

The second tunnel was a similar operation. It was roughly 550 metres long. Tunnels became a huge part of El Chapo’s operation.

See ----->El Chapo sentenced to life in prison - ADX Florence looming

Joseph 'The Animal' Barboza

A new film will chronicle Joseph 'The Animal' Barboza, suspected in more than 20 killings in Massachusetts. The Portuguese-American mafioso was a notorious mob hit man for the Patriarca crime family during the 1960s.

By 1966, Barboza was a powerful crime figure in the Boston underworld, a prolific and fearless contract killer.

In June 1967, Barboza turned FBI informant while in prison for murder, and eventually testified against Raymond Patriarca, Sr. before becoming one of the first to enter the Witness Protection Program. Barboza moved to northern California. He was arrested for second-degree murder in 1971 and sent to Folsom Prison. Barboza was paroled in 1975 and changed his name to 'Joseph Donati.' On Feb 11, 1976, Barboza was hit by four shotgun blasts at close range and killed instantly. Although he was armed with a .38, Barboza never had a chance to draw it.

F. Lee Bailey was quoted as having said Barboza’s death was “no great loss to society.”

Hells Angels fingered in Ucuelet murders

It's said the pair agreed to sail to Canada with a load of cocaine, believed to be in the hundreds kilograms.

The Astral Blue is a 14-metre sailboat whose last two crewmen disappeared on May 16, 2018. The bodies of Dan Archbald and Ryan Daley were found less than a month later on a logging road. Fifteen months have passed. The two men were likely casualties of a botched cocaine-smuggling scheme that they were recruited to do by a biker.

The person behind the operation is a full-patch Hells Angel. As the men got closer to the B.C. coast, they encountered a U.S. government vessel and panicked. They dumped most of their illicit cargo overboard and kept the rest. It's said associates of the Hells Angels met them in Ucuelet. Hells Angels Chad Wilson was tasked with taking care of “the problem” in Ucluelet. Wilson was on Vancouver Island at the time.

Oz Ponzi scammer Ryan Scott Williams pulls 5 years in Bali

Investigators reckon Australian fraudster Ryan Scott Williams made at least $28m out of a global Ponzi scheme called Centaur Litigation. Williams, a man of many, many names who has been convicted for running a boiler room scam in Thailand, is at the center of a chase for assets that’s circled the globe from the Cayman Islands to Thailand and a Sydney courtroom. There was no hope for investors who pumped £80m ($128m) into the Centaur fraud. Williams lived for years in Thailand. Two other key Centaur players, Briton Brendan Terrill, who ran the Hong Kong office, and Canadian Duane McGaw, have scattered across the globe. Terrill was sentenced to three years’ jail in Britain for child porn. McGaw is in Vancouver running a Japanese restaurant and investing millions in real estate.

Williams got a shock when he was found guilty in Bali of producing 38.72 grams of cocaine – a charge with a maximum death penalty – and sentenced to 5 years behind bars. His legal team had been hoping for a lenient sentence served in rehabilitation, not jail. The Indonesian judges instead found him guilty of production. His lawyer says Williams will not appeal the sentence because of the risk of it being increased.

Peter Gotti’s lawyer - ‘Stevie Wonder could see’ mobster is changed man

Former Gambino crime boss Peter Gotti lost his effort to be released early from prison.

Gotti’s illnesses include an enlarged prostate, gastric reflux and early onset dementia.

Lawyers for the former Gambino acting boss continue attempts to spring their ailing client from prison on compassionate release 17 years into his 25-year sentence. “He is a very sick old man who simply wants to die, when the time comes, at home.” The feds maintain that Gotti, brother of “Teflon Don” John Gotti, is still a danger to the community.

Stevie Wonder in 1973.

Peter Arthur Gotti, "One Eyed Pete", "Petey Boy", "One Eye", is a New York mobster and former boss of the Gambinos. John J. Gotti did not believe his brother even had the ability to belong to Cosa Nostra, which may have led to Peter's reputation as "the Dumbest Don." In 1999, Gambino acting boss John A. Gotti was sent to prison and Peter became the new acting boss, with assistance from capos Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo, and John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico.

The three mobsters formed a "Committee" which ran the day-to-day operations of the Family.

Drug dealer John N. Kapoor faces music - 5½ Years in Prison

U.S. Attorneys asked the court to sentence John N. Kapoor to 15 years in prison and seek more than $113m. Four other former Insys executives have received less than three years in prison on government recommendations of more than 10 years. Kapoor will become the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executive to be sentenced in a case linked to the opioid crisis. Kapoor was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy in a scheme that involved bribing doctors to prescribe the fentanyl-based painkiller, Subsys.

There were at least 908 deaths in which Subsys is a primary suspect.

Jurors heard from former employees who testified that Insys made a habit of hiring attractive women as representatives to boost sales of the drug. They would entice doctors to prescribe Subsys through an elaborate series of kickbacks via 'speaking engagements'. The scheme included visits to strip clubs, “lavish” dining and entertainment outings, and jobs for relatives and friends of people who prescribed Subsys. Sunrise Lee, a peeler turned pharmaceutical executive, will serve a year in prison for her role in using her sex appeal to bribe doctors.

See ---->Mob prosecutor Fred Wyshak takes on Insys Therapeutics Inc.

49ers’ Nick Bosa related to Tony Accardo

49ers’ Nick Bosa’s great-grandfather was notorious Chicago mobster Tony Accardo who worked closely with Al Capone. After Capone’s conviction for tax evasion in 1931, Accardo became a leader in the Chicago operation, a position he maintained for decades. He didn’t get the mob handle 'Joey Batters' for his proficiency at baking muffins. It was mob ruthlessness that earned Accardo his nickname. In early 1978, Accardo was in California. Robbers broke into his suburban Chicago home and the 71-year-old Accardo seethed for revenge. Within the year, 10 men were dead. “Each was found with his throat cut; one was castrated and disemboweled, his face removed with a blow torch, a punishment imposed, presumably, because he was Italian and should have known better.”

Despite 30 arrests, Accardo never spent a night in jail.

In 1951, Accardo was called to testify before Congress about organized crime. Wearing sunglasses, he invoked the Fifth Amendment 172 times. He was indicted for tax violations after he listed his occupation as “beer salesman” and tried to write off his Mercedes-Benz. He was eventually acquited.

Accardo died at age 86 of natural causes. He was in power for six decades.