BURST
A Brothers Keepers gangster and suspected hitman was found dead in a burning Surrey house Monday, a short time after he returned to Canada from the Middle East.
Naseem Ali Mohammed, known as Lil Man for his short stature, is believed to have been shot before the house at 12732 56th Ave. was set ablaze.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team wouldn’t comment Tuesday about the identity of the victim, despite social media posts saying it was Mohammed. But police and underworld sources confirmed to Postmedia that Mohammed was indeed the victim.
IHIT was checking the body’s fingerprints before releasing the name, a source said. But Postmedia obtained a copy of the photograph that appears to be Mohammed, after he was shot, with blood all over the right side of his face.
Property owner Bahadar Singh Sandhu said Tuesday that he was approached by a realtor who wanted a month-long short-term rental about a week before the murder.
He said his family only wanted to rent the house, assessed at $2.9 million, for two weeks, but agreed to the month when the realtor, who he declined to name, offered $10,000. The realtor paid $5,000 cash and $5,000 by e-transfer, Sandhu told Postmedia.
Sandhu said he never saw Mohammed nor knew he was staying at the house, the family’s former home that Sandhu built himself.
“We don’t know that he’s going to bring this guy,” Sandhu said.
He spoke to the realtor after the body was found Monday and the man told him: “‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know.’ He kept denying like this.”
Police wouldn’t let him into the house Monday to see how extensive the damage is.
“I feel so sad about my house,” Sandhu said.
Over the weekend, Mohammed, a rapper who uses the identity Certi2x and Wlatt, began posting video again on his Instagram account inside a vehicle driving around Surrey.
Since he was released from a U.S. prison in fall 2024, he has been living in Dubai and kept a much-lower profile. But he also remained a suspect in several gang murder cases in two Canadian provinces.
As news circulated of his slaying Monday, rivals in the UN gang posted images on their social media accounts drinking champagne. One showed a cake with writing on it saying: “Certi2x got smoked,” with a happy face in red icing.
Mohammed posted many similar messages over the years after his enemies were murdered.
In one video posted after gangster Gary Kang was killed in Surrey in 2021, Mohammed flashed a firearm, boasted about the high cost of his Louis Vuitton backpack and said “f–k BIBO” — a reference to Kang’s gang — and added: “I will smoke you myself. You are all p—ies.”
Since then, what’s left of BIBO has joined the UN gang — now the main rival of the Brothers Keepers.
Mohammed’s murder came just three days after Navpreet Dhaliwal, who was also aligned with the Brothers Keepers, was fatally shot in his parents’ Abbotsford home. He was on bail after being charged in 2024 in a murder conspiracy.
Mohammed spent almost three years in a Washington state prison after he pleaded guilty to armed robbery in April 2022 for pulling a gun on two strangers in a Seattle-area hookah lounge several months earlier. He was sentenced to 41 months in jail.
Charged in Ontario in 2019 with unlawful confinement, assault, pointing a firearm, uttering death threats, theft and robbery, Mohammed skipped town while on bail at his parents’ Surrey home.
He was caught with three other men after crossing the border in Montana on Jan. 23, 2021. He told U.S. authorities he was an American named Bati Ahmed, although he had no identification on him. They checked his fingerprints in their databases but found no match, so let him go.
They later learned from Canadian authorities that he was wanted on this side of the border. A U.S. Federal Court affidavit filed in February 2021 by border patrol agent Seth Justesen said Mohammed is “a high-ranking member of the Brothers Keepers gang.”
“Canadian authorities have advised that Mohammed is the primary suspect in multiple gang-related homicides spanning two provinces,” Justesen’s affidavit also said, though the document provided no details about the killings allegedly committed by Mohammed.
He then turned up at the Empire Hookah Lounge on Nov. 8, 2021, where he threatened two men with a Glock if they didn’t hand over their jewelry, according to his plea deal.
While Mohammed was in jail, his older brother Sameh was shot to death in Brampton, Ont., in September 2022. At the time, Sgt. Brenda Winpenny of B.C.’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit said the elder Brothers Keeper had fled to Ontario because of threats against him in B.C.
“He is an individual with a well-documented history of being involved in the local gang landscape,” she said of Sameh. “Unfortunately, as we have seen far too many times, they cannot hide from their past, resulting in tragic consequences.”
More to come …