B.C., California police search for fugitive linked to stabbings, drug trafficking
Credit to Author: Kim Bolan| Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 01:19:18 +0000
Police are searching for former Vancouver realtor Ricky Korasak, who is wanted in both B.C. and in California.
Korasak, 34, was charged in December 2019 for an alleged role in an attempted murder in Maple Ridge in August 2015.
And Korasak was charged south of the border last fall, accused of being a leader of an international criminal organization smuggling drugs between Canada and the United States.
Korasak’s whereabouts are unknown, according to a news releases this week from Ridge Meadows RCMP and CrimeStoppers.
The RCMP said that Korasak and two other men “were allegedly involved in a stabbing of two men, which occurred in the 22200-block of Lougheed Highway.”
News reports at the time said the attack, which took place about 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 23, was right outside the Haney Public House in the historic Haney Hotel.
Ricky Korasak in undated photo
According to the online court database, one of the other two accused in the case is Brandon Teixeira, who is awaiting extradition from California to face a first-degree murder charge in connection with a 2017 shooting in Surrey.
Also charged is Shawn Gary Corbett, who appeared in Port Coquitlam provincial court Wednesday. He has been released on $1500 bail.
Corbett was named in the Surrey Six trial as an alleged drug dealer and former tenant of suite 1505 in the Balmoral Tower, where three Red Scorpion gang members murdered six people, including two bystanders, on Oct. 19, 2007.
The suite’s owner testified that he kicked Corbett out of the penthouse suite after the building manager told him Corbett had a marijuana grow-op in another unit. Corbett recommended the new tenant, the landlord testified.
Corbett is also listed on corporate records as the vice-president of Elite Auto Glass, in Surrey. The company’s president was Ryan Provencher, until he was found murdered near Ashcroft last summer.
Corbett has convictions for assault.
Both Korasak and Corbett are charged with accessory to attempted murder and aggravated assault.
Const. Julie Klaussner said Korasak “is considered to be dangerous. If you see him do not approach and call 911 immediately.”
Anyone with information about his whereabouts are asked to call investigators at 604-463-6251.
In California, Korasak is one of 17 Canadians and 13 others alleged to be part of a drug smuggling organization moving ecstasy to California and trucking cocaine back into Canada.
The head of the operation, according to U.S. court records, is Vincent Yen Tek Chiu, a Vancouver man also known as “El Chino,” “Tiger” and “Immortal Planet” who was originally charged last July. He is in custody in the U.S.
An indictment filed in Los Angeles in October said: “defendants Chiu and Korasak and others, known and unknown, would arrange for the transportation of MDMA (ecstasy) from Canada into the United States in exchange for cocaine.”
Korasak also has a strange link to the Surrey Six case — one of the victims, Eddie Narong, used Korasak’s name as an alias, according to court records.
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