Dean Wiwchar

Two contract killings on opposite sides of the country, thirteen years apart in court, and one judge who broke from her own script to tell him he should write his story. Dean Wiwchar is the hitman both the Alkhalil and Amero files run through — the man who is reported to have actually pulled the trigger in both the Raposo and Duhre murders, and who is now serving sentences for both.

Identity and Early Life

Dean Michael Wiwchar was born around 1986 and grew up in Stouffville, Ontario, in what’s described as a middle-class family. Reporting on his background describes a troubled adolescence: frequent suspensions from school for violence, and a reputation as a leader among a group of similarly inclined teenagers. In the fall of 2004, still a teenager, he went on a series of violent robberies across York Region — targeting people in fast food restaurants, in their homes, and in their vehicles. He was sentenced to five years, a term reduced on account of his age in the hope that he could still be rehabilitated. He served that sentence at Kent and Matsqui institutions in British Columbia — unusual, since Canadian prisoners are typically held in their home province — and was convicted three separate times between 2005 and 2009 for assaulting correctional officers while inside.

“The Wolfpack’s Best Hitter”

By the early 2010s, Wiwchar was operating as a contract killer inside the Wolfpack Alliance network, closely tied to Rabih Alkhalil, who court reporting has described referring to him as his “best hitter.” Before either murder case reached him, police caught him with an arsenal: sixteen firearms recovered from a Vancouver condo and a second “safehouse” condo in Surrey. He was convicted on the weapons charges and sentenced to ten years — a conviction that predates, and was still being served alongside, the murder investigations that would come to define his record.

The Raposo Contract — Toronto, 2012

On May 21, 2012, Alkhalil offered Wiwchar $100,000 to kill fellow Wolfpack-linked figure John Raposo in Toronto, after Raposo fell under suspicion of informing on co-conspirator Nicola Nero. Wiwchar accepted. In text messages produced at trial, Raposo was referred to as “the ice cream boy.”

On June 18, 2012, as soccer fans packed the patio of the Sicilian Sidewalk Café in Toronto’s Little Italy to watch a Euro 2012 match, a man dressed as a construction worker walked up to Raposo and shot him in the head at close range. Prosecutors identified that man as Wiwchar. He was arrested within days. Four men — Nero, Martino Caputo, Alkhalil and Wiwchar — stood trial together.

The File Nobody Closed — Vancouver, 2012–2018

While the Raposo case was still working through the Ontario courts, Wiwchar was already a named suspect in a second killing three provinces away. Sandip “Dip” Duhre, a leader of the rival Dhak-Duhre crime group, was shot to death at close range while dining in the restaurant of the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre on January 17, 2012 — five months before the Raposo killing. Wiwchar was under police surveillance in Vancouver as a suspect in that shooting even before Raposo’s murder happened. He was also hired to kill Duhre’s associate, Sukh Dhak, and is reported to have carried out surveillance and preparation toward that plot — but he was arrested for the Raposo murder before he could finish the job. Dhak was shot dead in Burnaby that November by someone else entirely.

Wiwchar was formally charged with first-degree murder in the Duhre killing in January 2018, alongside conspiracy counts covering both the Duhre and Dhak files. What followed was one of the longest-running unresolved files connected to the Wolfpack’s collapse: co-accused complications, appeals, and years of delay meant the case sat until 2021, when Alkhalil and Larry Amero went to trial together in Vancouver over the same two conspiracies — and were convicted in August 2022, years before Wiwchar’s own case was resolved.

Thirteen Years Later, a Surprise Plea

On October 30, 2025 — nearly fourteen years after the Duhre shooting — Wiwchar entered a surprise guilty plea in B.C. Supreme Court to two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, one for Duhre and one for Dhak. As part of the plea agreement, the first-degree murder charge over the actual Duhre shooting was stayed. Crown prosecutor Mark Sheardown told the court Wiwchar had acted as the contracted hitman who carried out the killing, even though the murder count itself did not proceed to a verdict. Justice Kathleen Ker confirmed directly with Wiwchar that he understood the plea and was entering it voluntarily.

One detail from that day has circulated in reporting since: when police first told Wiwchar he was under arrest for first-degree murder, he is reported to have asked simply, “which one?”

Wiwchar is appealing his 2017 Ontario conviction for the Raposo murder. That appeal has not been decided.

Two Escape Allegations

Wiwchar has twice been reported as attempting to escape custody, in incidents of very different evidentiary weight.

Where This Leaves the File

No police force or prosecutor has attached a formal gang or criminal-organization label to Wiwchar personally beyond his description as a Wolfpack-linked contract killer in court reporting on the Raposo and Duhre cases specifically. He has never been reported as a member of the Hells Angels himself — that club connects to this file through Amero, not through Wiwchar. What is established by conviction is narrower and more specific than a gang-membership label: two killings, two courtrooms, two guilty findings, thirteen years apart.