Web of BC Interior gang violence untangles as court cases near end

A knot of gang violence that appeared to start with the deaths of two Kamloops brothers has been slowly untied in court as trials wrap up for some of the accused.

When Carlo and Erick Fryer were killed near Naramata, it appeared to set off an effort to retaliate and the violence spread from a killing in the South Okanagan to an attempt in the Cariboo.

It started with a scheme to lure the brothers into a deal for more than $230,000 worth of drugs in a rural area outside the South Okanagan community. Once there, Wade Cudmore and co-accused Anthony Graham killed the brothers and took the drugs, according to BC prosecutors.

A woman walking her dog, May 10, 2021, discovered the brothers’ bodies on a logging road after a gruesome deaths involving a shotgun, a knife and a hammer. The weapons were still at the scene, the court heard.

The Fryer brothers’ links to Lower Mainland gangs aren’t known, but people connected with those gangs appear to have retaliated. There was an attempt on Graham’s life in Quesnel, then Cudmore’s mother was found dead in her Naramata home.

Those incidents centred around three men accused of involvement in the retaliations, connecting a string of violence that brought Lower Mainland gangsters to the BC Interior.

Red Scorpions gangster Ekene Anigbo’s trial hasn’t concluded yet, but Crown lawyers alleged he and co-accused Jalen Falk were on a mission to recover thousands in stolen drugs.

They first travelled to Prince George in May 2021, two weeks after the Fryer brothers were killed near Naramata. Police said Graham was targeted in a drive-by shooting for which another man, Shahram Tokhy, was charged for conspiracy to commit murder. That charge is heading to a judge-alone trial this summer.

Graham has been at-large ever since.

In the following days, Anigbo and Falk travelled back to Naramata, where they broke into Richardson’s home. She was tied to a chair and shot twice in the head, according to the CBC.

Falk subsequently pleaded guilty to Richardson’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 16 years.

One of the accused in the brothers’ deaths, Anthony Graham, remains at-large, but he was allegedly targeted in a Cariboo region drive-by shooting before he was later reported as missing in 2021.

Ekene and Falk never found Richardson’s son, Cudmore, but he has since been convicted in the killing of the two Fryer brothers. He was sentenced in 2024.

It’s not clear whether Cudmore and Graham are believed to be connected to organized crime, but the court heard evidence that Cudmore has a history of drug use and consumed drugs on the day of the Fryers’ deaths.

With some matters concluded in court, a pair of them are still ongoing. Crown lawyers delivered their closing arguments in Anigbo’s judge-alone Kelowna trial this week and the man charged in planning an attempt on Graham’s life is heading to trial this summer, while Graham’s outstanding charges haven’t been tested as he remains at-large.