WHICH WEST COAST DRUG TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATION WAS MURDER VICTIM DR ROBERT HENRY MACLAUCHLAN A SENIOR MEMBER OF?

As was mentioned in this blog a few postings ago (November 18, 2013), now deceased journalist Dennis Bell told his uncle, retired Albertan defence lawyer and author Jack Pecover, that off-the- record police sources had told him (Bell) that Dr Robert Henry MacLauchlan had been the Number 2 man in the West Coast drug trade. MacLauchlan, faithful readers will remember, was murdered along with his wife, Margaret Anne “Nan” Cunningham MacLauchlan, on March 21, 1966 shortly before both were due to go on trial for trafficking in narcotics (heroin). When he was arrested in late December 1965, MacLauchlan had been in possession of about $200,000 worth of heroin. Police were of the opinion that MacLauchlan had been silenced three months later to prevent him from revealing the names of “Mr. Big” in whichever organization he was part of.

Speaking very generally, during the mid- to late 1960s and early 1970s, there were two major Vancouver-based criminal organizations – one headed by William Faulder “Fats” Robertson and the other by the Palmer Brothers. The Robertson Gang, it can be determined from newspaper accounts, consisted over the years of about two dozen individuals. Through a few of these individuals, the Robertson Gang was linked to the Montreal Mafia, centred around Jean-Louis Bisson and Robert Tremblay, who were in turn linked to the New York Mafia. The Palmer Brothers had about a dozen associates, a small number of which were similarly linked to the Montreal Mafia.