Ottawa police are investigating an arson at a Nepean bungalow for connections to a notorious international crime family, CBC News has learned.
The arson at 95 Rossland Ave. happened around 3:45 a.m. on Oct. 8. Firefighters arrived to find two people on the front lawn who had escaped the blaze. Paramedics treated one man and one woman for burns and smoke inhalation.
A few doors down Rossland Avenue is another home once owned by alleged cocaine trafficker Hisham “Terry” Alkhalil, one of five gangster brothers from the same family. He sold that property, at least on paper, in 2021.
But even after the sale, in February 2022, a longtime gang associate of the Alkhalils was found hiding out in the home and was arrested by RCMP.
The home at 95 Rossland Ave. is owned by a numbered company registered to Neveen Alkhalil, confirmed by police sources with extensive knowledge of the Alkhalil criminal organization as a sister of the Alkhalil brothers.
The address of that numbered company is a Kanata North townhouse registered to their mother and father.
Who are the Alkhalils?
The Alkhalil crime family has ties to British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. They are synonymous in the criminal underworld with money, influence and violence.
Two of the five brothers were murdered in gangland disputes in British Columbia in the early 2000s. A third was killed in Mexico in 2018. The youngest escaped from a federal prison while awaiting trial for murder and remains at large.
According to eldest brother Nabil Alkhalil’s 2011 immigration decision, the family came to Canada in 1990, landing at Montréal-Mirabel International Airport and making a refugee protection claim.
Family patriarch Hossein Alkhalil fled Palestine during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, travelling first to Lebanon and then to Saudi Arabia before coming to Canada during the Gulf War with his wife Soumaya Azzam and their children.
In 2004, after the death of two brothers, the family moved to Ottawa.
RCMP deputy commissioner Dwayne McDonald stands next to a wanted sign for fugitive Rabih Alkhalil, who escaped from a B.C. prison while awaiting murder charges. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
In 2014, police seized the Rossland Avenue home registered to Terry Alkhalil during construction in an operation called Project Anarchy.
Police seized 24.5 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $12.5 million, four guns and the home, whose value was pegged at $1.2 million. The charges against Terry Alkhalil were ultimately stayed after the case took too long to get to court.
Notorious gangster found hiding out in home
The following year, RCMP arrested Hells Angel Damion Ryan, an Alkhalil family associate and fellow gangster found hiding out in the former Alkhalil home. Police have described Ryan as “likely one of most prolific organized crime members in our country.”
RCMP allege that bust dismantled an international Mexican cartel drug smuggling ring.
Court records allege Ryan was found in the former Akhalil home where guns were found stored inside the kitchen, family room, laundry room and office.
Months later, Rabih Alkhalil escaped from a B.C. prison while awaiting murder charges. He remains at large at the top of Canada’s most wanted list, and is believed to be abroad.
Alkhalil family members continue to own several homes in Ottawa. Ottawa police were not available for an interview but said they continue to investigate.