One is linked to the shooting that had bullets flying inside the bustling Eaton Centre food court in June 2012, killing two men and injuring six, including a 13-year-old boy.

The other is connected to an execution-style killing outside Yorkdale Shopping Centre last spring, in which a killer waited in the parking lot for his intended targets.

Both gangs — known as Sic Thugs and Asian Assassinz — are “incredibly ruthless” and “sophisticated” rivals whose reach across Toronto is atypical of street-level crews, which usually have a small “criminal footprint,” according to police.

As a result, early morning raids targeting the gangs Wednesday took place across the city, including Regent Park, Liberty Village and North York, and outside the GTA.

Officers from police forces across southern Ontario ultimately arrested more than 50 people and confiscated nine guns, along with cocaine, heroin, marijuana and large amounts of cash.

A total of 20 guns and 30 people had been arrested in the lead-up to the raids, the culmination of year-long investigations dubbed Projects RX and Battery.







Charges laid include criminal organization, trafficking of firearms, drugs and humans; firearm possession; armed robbery; and conspiracy to commit robbery. Because the gangs are believed to be tied to shootings across the city, homicide charges may be laid, Acting Police Chief Mark Saunders told a news conference Wednesday.

Susan von Acthen, the lawyer representing many suspects arrested in Regent Park on Wednesday, says there are so many charges of conspiracy to traffic cocaine or marijuana that she has “lost count.”

As for gang involvement, von Acthen called it “nonsense.”

“There is absolutely no gang affiliation. These are people who have known each other over the years on and off. There is not a gang,” she said during a smoke break outside a Finch Ave. court, where many raid cases were heard Wednesday.

“There is no organization of any group by any leader to do any thing …These people who have been arrested couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery,” she said.

Originally a barrister in England who has been representing clients from Regent Park for over a decade, Von Acthen said she has doubts about the gang investigations.

“They’re talking nonsense. They really ought to talk to me to learn what’s going on on the streets,” she said.

While Saunders did not go into detail about the nature of the gangs’ rivalry, Michael Chettleburgh, a Toronto gangs and youth crimes expert, said its a matter of drug turf in a “very competitive market.”

“That’s always what it comes down to, for those two crews there no other financial enterprises that they engage in, other than largely drug sales,” he said.

Based out of Regent Park, the Sic Thugs have been on the police radar for years, believed to have come out of the now-defunct Point Blank Soldiers gang, which was linked to the 2005 Boxing Day shooting death of bystander Jane Creba.

Shortly after the June 2012 Eaton Centre shooting, sources told the Star that accused shooter Christopher Husbands and both victims, Ahmed Hassan amd Nixon Nirmalendran, were both members of the Sic Thugs gang and that the shooting had been the result of internal gang strife.

Less than a year later, police said, two men gunned down outside Yorkdale Shopping Centre in April 2013 — one of whom, 23-year-old Michael Nguyen, was killed — were known members of the “violent” Asian Assassinz gang.

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At a news conference Wednesday, Saunders said both gangs have demonstrated a heightened level of sophistication and organization, prompting an increase in the level of law enforcement.

But Chettleburgh said he’s seeing the opposite: smaller crews, which don’t display what used to be the hallmarks of well-organized gangs a decade ago, such as gang signs, tattoos and dress codes.

“All that stuff is gone. We see more fragmentation than ever before … less sophistication,” he said.

Where there is a degree of organization, he said, is with street-level crews developing collaborative relationships with organized crime for the wholesale supply of drugs.

Wednesday’s early-morning raids were a shock to many in the buildings invaded by heavily armed police shouting down the halls and leading suspects out of residences in handcuffs.

“There were men yelling, ‘Clear! Clear!’” said Beth Harris, a resident of 125 Western Battery Rd., a highrise in Liberty Village that was searched.

“At first I thought they were gunshots,” said Bonnie Malec, 33. “They broke down a door.”

At a home in North York, police entered the residence of 85-year-old Collis Ambrose and his wife Pamela, 83. According to their son Wayne, police “ransacked” the place.

“They had their guns in their faces,” he said. “The place is a mess.”

Asked why the police would have wanted to search the address, Ambrose said his nephew sometimes stays there — “I don’t know if he was involved in something or what,” he said.

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash confirmed that police had search the house and seized drugs while seeking someone at that address who could be facing “extremely serious” charges involving guns and drugs.

“The issue here is that we had evidence that appears to be accurate that he was there, and spent time there,” he said.

“One of the points I think needs to be made is: If you are living with people who are involved in an extremely dangerous lifestyle, then you have to consider what the implications of that are,” Pugash said.

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