You know, as I said, I'm very honored to have him as a friend.
He's had a quite an amazing life from being a professional boxer
to being bodyguards for some scary people and some, I think
some celebrities too. You said David.
So David, please introduce yourself and and tell a little
bit about your background and some of the people you worked
with and you know, the little little snapshot of what the life
of David Bella. Thank you for having, Mark.
My name is David Velloy. I'm a 62 year old male.
I'm a born again Christian now and my I've been out of the
crime scene since 2004. It's my last sentence was 2002.
I've been in a lot of organized crime families.
Italian, Portuguese 1981. I was in the front page of Mike
de Silva's house was being bombed.
I was his bodyguard. Bikers in Toronto and also here
in and on the island, Vancouver Island.
I work with the Colombians with the Cubans and I I was.
I was arrested on $1,000,000 extortion on this Robert
involved with Robert Bidwell who was Robert Vesco's partner who?
Had an island off the Cuba under Castro's protection.
I've been involved with a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of
organizations, And yeah, I have quite the insight on the
organized crime and drug addiction because I was a drug
addict myself. Your name of your friend that
was a boxer, Eddie. Eddie Mellow, Eddie Mill.
He was a top contending boxer. He was a Was he a middle weight
or what was his weight? He was a middle weight
hurricane. Middle weight.
Extremely talented. Yeah.
He was a savage in the ring. He was a real probably one of
the best in my opinion. Probably one of the most
underrated and one of the best Canadian boxers of all time.
In my opinion, he ended up being an enforcer for the Montreal
mom. Is that correct?
That's correct. Yeah.
So when you're talking about this Mike De Silva, just so
people understand that they want to do a little research, Mike De
Silva was kind of in the heart that we won't get in this
episode. We'll do an episode specifically
about that. But I just want to provide some
context to some of the names that David I just brought up.
And then the guy in the island, the Vesco, he was like high up
and he would, he would think he would like he had a direct
connection to Castro and and with the Colombian cartel.
So basically they bought an island and they were trafficking
massive amounts of cocaine. And yeah, it's a crazy
fascinating case. The world will do an episode
just on that because it's just such a mind blowing thing.
So the point is David was on the top of the, the top one
percenter type of criminals that you know the top 1% like
Colombian cartels, the mafia out of Toronto, two families out of
one out of Toronto, one out of Hamilton, the Montreal mafia,
which is Montreal is a very mafia city.
And then also working for the directly as a bodyguard for the
Colombian cartel. We talked a little bit about
that some of the earlier podcast.
So yeah, David's really the real deal here.
And that's why I'm grateful to have a lot of true crime
podcasts and television shows and things like that.
You know, they talk about these things, but they don't have a
first hand source, right? David's a first hand source, a
survivor of this world. So if in my opinion, it's a real
honor to have them about two areas, we're going to talk about
his life case against you in which you won.
Yeah, break that down first like cuz that's very fascinating.
You. Yeah, you really, you basically
ran Nanaimo and then I for people don't understand that
Nanaimo is a major city in the in the drug pipeline.
And I released. I was released from Kent in 9096
from from segregation, doing 2 1/2 years of segregation.
I was released from segregation out to society, which I had. 2
something years left of mandatory to do and I I
successfully did that. Mandatory.
I I I did some but I went back to boxing and I fought on
pay-per-view on the commando challenge too.
I went posted that fight too. I had that place.
I'll post it again. Yeah, I won that fight.
And from that fight the promoter was from who lived on the
island. That's how I became the island.
And so I. I I I met Don Arnot who promoted
that fight. So I I love the island.
So I decided to come to the island.
But at that time I was, you know, I was living a clean life
and I was married. But during that time my my wife
relapsed and she had yeah, she had another man's child and
that. Yeah, that made me.
I lost it. And then I went back to
everything that I was for and and.
And people who knew me because, you know, I had that, you know,
fame as a fighter, you know that that attracts people.
And anyways, yeah. And then I started the I started
my shit again. And yeah, and what happened was
this town, the junkies, it was a lot of needles here.
And when crack came out, I brought crack to this island
and. Yeah, and police sort of let me
go because it took the needles off the street, right?
Right. Yeah, so I They gave me.
They gave me grace. They didn't bother me.
They let me. They let me.
I made a lot of money, man. They just let me sell my drugs,
you know, I was doing what I was doing.
I wasn't doing so much violence then.
But then a little later on, I started doing the violence.
That's when they decided they wanted to arrest me.
And they and they they. They didn't bust me.
What happened was they there was a news clipping that came out
that this the mayor of Nanaimo wanted to know why the police
spent over $1,000,000 trying to arrest me when they have Hells
Angels and other you know triads and other gang members here and
nothing was ever spent on that kind of amount to arrest anybody
and there and. They said, well, David was a
high individual. We had our reasons.
You know, he has bunkers of explosives and that's what they
assumed that I had and that was the reasoning.
But they didn't, they didn't find nothing and nothing was
arrested. So that's so you know I just let
you know about that story about the $1,000,000 race not me and
arrest mentioned before to me David member you mentioned
before like the when you basically you know Ran Nanaimo
yes what organizations you working you're working with or.
Well, I I worked with, I worked with a Mexican.
The people I was involved in were involved with the Mexican
cartel, right? OK.
So I was got any scarier than that.
Yeah, there was. Yeah, they like pretty.
If anyone ever watches narcos that we know what what the what
the Mexican cartel can get up to they they they're pretty, pretty
ferocious, right. So.
Very ferocious and there's two two guys out of Victoria that
were partners. I will mention their last name
of course one's the guys names Nick and the other guy is big.
James and I worked for both of these guys and they they
supplied me all the best drugs, best drugs and and plus I had.
Their crew. Also the make.
You know, I had their crew, which, right, if you needed, if
you needed extra muscle, you had unlimited muscle, yeah.
And people also knew, like other other heavies on the island,
knew who I was involved with too.
So that also gave me grace too, right?
Yeah. So yeah that's who I was
involved with with with Nick and James they were they they had
full control of the of this island pretty much.
So I wanted to bring that up because and then I was
interested in bringing the Naimo up because the Naimo and then
lot of ways is kind of like the pipeline into Vancouver.
Far as a drug deal, drugs come from a lot of different places
airports, the land, the border. But Nanaimo is a major portal
you know from you, right. So a lot of the drugs, do you
feel that most of the drugs that you that went through your hands
that they kind of just stay on the island or did they're also
lots go over like to the mainland and stuff?
Oh yeah, they, they go all over. They've come through the ports
and that from here they go to, you know, from Victoria.
They they move, you know, like also they go into the States
from here to the reservations. So you know, because we got pot,
they send the pot over, they send a Coke over or vice, so
whatever, you know, you know, guns and weapons, yeah, it's
just one big circle man. So this for like OK there you
know again this for the listeners, right.
So drugs, drugs is a heavy business, right.
It's a heavy, heavy business and and running that business is you
got to have a heavy hand. So The thing is, is this is that
people want to use drugs sometimes they don't have the
money to pay for drugs and you know, obviously not getting
explicit or implicating yourself and anything but just talking
generally typically how does one besides taking drugs and
overdose and besides that, how does one get in trouble with
drugs besides you know the taking drugs.
Like what are the some of the scenarios that you've seen were
someone that say they get drugs on consignment or don't want to
pay for them or don't have the money either to maybe break down
that aspect of it. You know that makes sense, but.
Being a drug. Being a being a successful drug
dealer you want to get. You want to find somebody that
has a lot. You want to get them addicted so
you can start taking their homes, their boats, jewelry,
their guns, whatever they have. That's you want to get somebody,
You give them the drugs for free, man.
Here you get them, get them, get kind of get them hooked, so to
speak. Get them fish on the fishing
line, you get them hooked, get them wired and that person is
yours. And that's what you want.
You know, I had a couple of millionaires on on my payroll,
You know what I mean? And you, you just give them,
man. You just give them and you give
them and then you have then then you want you have people that
eventually run out of their money.
You know, they're not millionaires.
So you know, they have maybe had homes or had condos, you know,
or you know, had nice vehicles. They work and then they have no
more nothing. What they do is that you know
they. To get their high, they'll do
anything. They'll, you know, they'll rip
off drug dealers. They'll steal from their family
members. They'll do whatever they takes
to get that, that drug day that they leak.
Yeah, because they've been, they have such a habit, you know,
because they've been using and you just can't cut them off, you
know? Yeah.
So yeah, I tell a story. In my Vancouver Beautiful and
Ugly series. I had a roommate, and I don't
think I ever told you this story, David.
So I'll tell it really quickly. So this guy moved in.
I was like, I was a kid, right? I was like going.
I was just out of high school. I think it was only 22, maybe
20-3. Yeah, this guy was older than
me. He was like in his 30s.
He had a he had his own business.
He delivered auto parts like to round the city so people would
call him, oh, I need this. I need a starter, right.
And he had a good business. He was kind of like what they
call it with a Courier, but for for the auto part business.
We created this business from scratch, made good money.
He had. When I moved into his house, I
was like into his house. He rented me a room.
But actually, the house wasn't his, but he was sharing a room
together. We're sharing.
We're sharing a suite together. So he had a room.
I had a room, right. So when I when I moved in, all
the furniture in the living room was his, you know, had a TV, had
couches. He had a bedroom set.
He had a car. He had a truck.
He had a boat. He had a motorcycle.
And I'd come home. So I was going to school.
I'd come home from school. I'm like, oh, the couches are
gone. Oh, the T V's gone.
Oh, the bed's gone. Oh, the car's gone.
Oh, the truck is gone and the boat is gone.
And I'm not kidding, David, he he was left.
All he had was a mountain bike and he was sleeping on one of
those, you know, those blue foamy things.
When you're camping, I think it's called the insulate.
You know where you go camping. It's like a blue roll.
Put out your sleeping bag. So just like a little like a
foamy roll, he was sleeping on that and and he had no money for
rent anymore. So the the landlady kicked him
out and and then and then I don't know high out of his mind
he decided that he was going to ride his bike to Yellowknife.
I don't know if he made it or not.
I don't know if any but but his friend who was a tree planter
came to visit him and soon as his friend came into the house
saw everything gone and I told him, hey, what was going down he
goes, oh shit he's doing coke again.
And I've seen that with other like quote mayor talk a lot
about my friend Kevin. He got a student loan within
about 3 or 4000 bucks blew it in one weekend on coke just it's
it's it's crazy. So in your experience, it's just
in generally speaking did you find that the coke people that
use coke more rabbit or is it the heroin there or is it
equaled if it it just if it just depends on their their appetite?
Well, you know, once you get started, you can't stop.
You just can't stop. People are, as you get become
such a pig on it. You right.
You just kind of stop. Yeah, you just stop it.
And then plus, you have friends that you know you don't want to
be. You don't want to be alone.
And you got all these people that love you.
And Oh yeah, you're my best friend.
I would kill for you. I do this for you.
I do that when you're flying the OH.
Plus, you got all the the girls in her and you know you're the
right, you're the man. Then over all that run.
So there's all those people. Yeah, for sure.
I I, you know over the years you have known a few escorts you
know ladies of the night and stuff like that.
And they would tell me about crazy calls they'd get they'd
make like 5 grand on the weekend.
The guy would even want sex. He's so high out of his mind on
below and they're just like yo keep it going keep making calls
for him because you know the key the long as the party's going
they're getting paid. They don't even have to do it.
I think the guy's just so out of his mind.
And I've heard that scenario quite a few times over the
years. Back I used to work in, you
know, bars and nightclubs and stuff and a lot of escorts and
stuff would come in some of the places I worked.
And I, you know, I got friendly with them as customers.
And you know, you know, a lot of them were, you know, for to me,
you know, I didn't use them and stuff.
But for me and them, they, you know, where we were on good
terms and they were nice to me and things last.
So they tell me all these crazy stories and stuff and some of
them pretty pretty like you know, some of the I won't get
into it now but some of the stories were also pretty like
what some of these guys were into.
But but my point is, is that people change on these things.
Like you know what I mean? I've seen it.
I've seen it firsthand. You're a nice mild mannered.
I've worked in the stock market industry seen a lot of drugs in
there and they just become very grandiose and crazy and their
appetites get big for prostitutes and kinks.
And you know what I mean? It really, it really does
something to some people's like personalities were it's like
they they can't control themselves anymore and it's I've
I've seen and I'm probably sure you've seen even more of your
background maybe Breakdown likes like like some of the more
extreme examples where a guy just was starting to dabble and
then at the end like how much money that some of these people
like burnt through. Well, that when you you were
talking about your friend owning a business, well like again and
I and I, I was telling you about being a successful drug deal
you. You want to get somebody hooked
and sink. While there was one guy who
owned the pizza company pizzas, couple chains, he had a couple
stores and I got this guy all wired on coke and I ended up
owning. We ended up owning his
businesses. Yeah, we ended up owning his
businesses, took it from them legally and and from there his
business. We had our drug dealers not only
delivering pizzas. Hope we were delivering coke.
Legit. Oh wow.
So when they would someone say they want a special pizza?
Wow or even or even not even we were just you know have a you
know we'll have a pizza driver who is up in our crew bring
pizzas but on the way making a stood up dropping up a key or a
couple of keys or picking up key you know cuz we had he was
legitimate he was a Pete. If he got pulled over, he.
Doing a pizza thing, right, Right.
So, yeah, so we got this guy for all his, got him for everything
and every. And you know what?
It's so bad that he came to the. I couldn't give him no more.
I mean, I, you know, I couldn't give him his day at this.
Last thing he could give me was his shoes.
Oh my God. His shoes and I felt so bad for
him. I felt so, yeah, they were good
quality shoes, right? So that.
Wow. So what do you think though?
OK, like this is, this is, as you know, more of a
philosophical question, the like the, the root of addiction.
Like, again, that's like, what do you think just from all your
years you've seen, you've been around a lot, you've seen a lot
of stuff and seen a lot of tragedies, tragic cases.
What do you think? Is that the root of this
addiction? Like, what do you think it's
feeding besides the high, you know what I mean?
Like there has to be something more than just the buzz, if that
makes sense. You know what a lot of it has to
do with the media, with TV and, you know, music.
You know, glamorizing, glamorizing this world of, you
know, you'll see TV on the drug dealers and you know, the Al
Capone like Scarface and everybody sees this glamour and.
And yeah. And a lot of people are naive,
you know, they see, they see can have a handle on it.
Oh yeah, I can quit anytime. Yeah, they got a lot of money to
their life is a bore. You know that?
You're married. They want a little something
extra and they don't know what they're getting themselves into
because they're naive to it, right?
And once they get started, then the devil bites the man.
Because it's the devil's drug, right?
He has to call it the devil's dandruff.
That that and it's true because you know there's a story about
cocaine the the the coca leaf was because they they the back
of the years before they they used to take this they enslave
the the Colombian people and and so the the chiefs got together
and they put a curse on the western world with the coca
leaf. All right, yeah, I see what
you're saying because again too, it's like if you go to like my
my wife, that password, that she was actually Peruvian and you
know, they use coca leaves, like, you know, for tea and
medicinal stuff, but cocaine is a very different thing.
It's like you know they take it takes a ton of leaves, £1000 of
leaves to make a make a pound basically of Coco paste and then
that gets mixed with all kinds of like like kerosene and
chemicals and and you know by the time it gets to the street
like the stuff that's in it. And you know what I mean it's
it's just like you said you like it.
I remember, I remember I was at a party once and this person
brought out a big thing of coke and I could smell it like across
the room. Like it was like because it was
like in a yet it in a bag and it was, it was quite like, it was
quite, quite big. It was like probably the size of
like, you know, those, you know, those pool ball cues.
It was probably about like four times the size of that, like in
a big block, but like a big square, right.
You know, using that as a a measurement thing, like a cool,
those pool cues, but four time, but four times of those, four of
those together. And I remember you opened the
bag and you could smell it across the room and it was just
like this potent, like really like intense, like chemical
odor, right. So the stuff that's in it, it's
like it's it's very like it's a very intense, it's a very like
powerful chemical. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a
chemical, right. And the the thing that I've seen
with cocaine addiction is that I think in a lot of the cases too,
it gives people kind of like bipolar or chemical imbalances.
And so I've known a lot of people that were able who did do
lots of it, and they got off it and it's like they're never the
same again. You know what I mean?
Like there's something like this almost like they have a type of
like, almost brain damage. Like it's like they they fried
their brain out, you know? And then someone says, oh, yeah,
this guy used to do like an ounce of coke a week.
I'm like whoa well not surprised you know so it seem like like
the the physical effects it has like I remember one time my
friend Kevin who was a pretty bad coke at it.
I went and visited him once. I cuz he wasn't answering his
phone and he he's to live with his mother believe it or not.
But his mom had a nursery and she had kind of like a coach
house that was in the nursery and he lived in there and I
knock on the thing and go, OK come on in and the whole place
is just like a disgusting pig style.
He hasn't left. He hadn't left the his apartment
for over a week. I go in his bedroom and I'm not
kidding, Dave. It was so disgusting.
He had a bathroom across the hall.
He was so paranoid, like, so paranoid.
But leaving his room he was peeing in containers like milk
containers, cups and stuff. I'm like, what's that I'm like
and it stunk so bad. So I've seen like the the the
behavior that it caused and I'm like, say you have a bathroom
And he lived by himself. He lived by himself.
He was so like, wigged out. He claimed leave his room.
That's called cocaine psychosis. Oh, definitely.
And then one time he told me that he was so paranoid that
someone was going to break in his house.
I I didn't know. I didn't know where he got it.
I didn't ask. He was that paranoid.
He was kneeling at the mail slot because it his door had like a
mail slot to push the mail through.
And he was kneeling at the mail slot looking through the mail
harm and he had a gun and he was paranoid that someone was coming
to raid. I'm like, well, who do you
think? I don't know somebody, somebody
as and he actually had knee he hurt.
He actually had knee issues after that.
Yeah, you know, cuz they be up for so many hours, no sleep.
That's. And another thing with cocaine
where they make that in the jungle you don't risk, you see a
lot of people picking at her skin, right?
Yeah. There's a, there's a little
parasite in the jungle that's so small that gets into the drug
that that the ether and all that doesn't kill it.
And it gets it in. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I've seen it. It gets into the drug.
And yes, so when people inject it and even yes, it gets into
their bloodstream, into their veins, that's why you see them
picking, because they see these little bugs.
Yeah, I heard about that in India.
Cuz given like everyone, like Kevin, he'd always be scratching
himself. He'd make me feel itchy, you
know what I mean? Like he'd make me feel he's
scratching and and I'm like dude, go have a shower like
you're you're you're making me. Well you're making me.
Yeah. You know, that's what I'm saying
And the reason I bring this up because he's brought up
something interesting because in the 80s you'll buy me 5
Scarface. You know guy doing coke with all
these attractive women and you know getting the, you know, the
hookers on, you know, the sex workers on on television.
You know they're always gorgeous and you know they're either they
do they they they did do a really great job of glamorizing
it. Right.
Glamorizing it the money and somehow it's cool and again but
that like the stockbroker guys that did it they always thought
it was like a cool status thing or you know I remember there was
this this is hilarious. There was this Courier company
downtown Vancouver. When I ex I when I worked in the
stock industry. I won't say the name of the
company in case it's so around but this Courier company, they
they would call them and this guy would call me in with the
uniform, you know and had this Manila you know, business type
of envelope and it was cocaine in it And and yeah, I seen it
like even in the in the office environment this is like kind of
kind of early 2000s, early 2000s, late 90s.
And you know these men, they're supposed to be, you know these
gentlemen in suits and drive nice cars and stuff.
I've seen them this go down to Alito.
They they make some big money on the stock market.
Next thing you know, they divorced their wife of 30 years
or their escort is now their girlfriend.
You know, of course they're paying through the nose.
Come in the office at 7:00 in the morning.
The guy's wearing his same suit that he has been all week and
he's chopping a line on the desk.
Right. And he just looks horrible.
He looks listless, like he looks like his head's going to
explode. And you know that that really
grossed me out. And course that, you know, I
didn't. I, I, I quit that industry for
many reasons, but that was one of the main ones because of the
excessive boozing, the drugs. And they always acted like it
was just the most awesome thing in the world.
And I'm like, you know this seeing their lives ruined.
I haven't almost none of them kept their money.
None of them kept their families or probably their families hate
them. And a lot of them are probably
dead now, heart attacks and stuff.
Because you know, when you're stimulating, you've been up for,
you know, when you're in your 40s or 50s and you might have an
underlining heart condition and you're just blasting yourself
with a pretty powerful stimulant, you're you're taking
a massive toll on your health and stuff.
So I've seen a lot of people's health deteriorate.
Did you? I knew a guy.
I know you. If you know him, I don't want to
say his name because, you know, again, I will say that, but he
was Mr. Canada at one point and he was a shorter guy.
He was a bodybuilder. He had a great build.
He was a, he was a very talented bodybuilder and he probably
could have went pro, but he, he got busted I think for a steroid
bus because he was working at the Vancouver airport.
And then when he came out of jail, he got really heavy into
the, you know, the blow and stuff and you know, yeah, he.
So he went from being this high caliber, you know, world class
bodybuilder, like doing like these really like international
contests to living on Hastings. Street, you know.
You got you got all kinds of athletes professional athletes
you know like daddy. Daddy who who who is who is Tad.
Sorry Taunty who was murdered in the in the United States.
He there was such a world champion multimillionaire, but
he couldn't give up to the his, his lifestyle, You know, as a as
a drug guy, as a drug dealer and a gangster.
And hearing it making millions is such a professional fighter
and he ends up getting assassinated.
Was that the one where he got, Was that the guy they got
strangled and he actually thought that it was his wife or
girlfriend or ex-girlfriend filled him?
That was John. That was Gotti.
But he was not involved in drugs.
No, that's a different story. That's different case.
So that's yeah. That's but even when we
mentioned my brother Eddie Mellow and here at this, he was
very successful. He's a 19 year old.
He became professional at the age of 17.
He was successful Canadian athlete who brought boxing PP.
Boxers. Got the money because of him,
because he made it, made it famous Canada, famous boxing.
Here you have a guy who who is now he was assassinated by who
allegedly Mike de Silva, who I was working for in 81, his
bodyguard because Eddie introduced me to him.
To protect him. But back in 2000, he was, Eddie
was assassinated and Mike got arrested for that, but he ended
up beating it in court. Here's Eddie.
He was, God bless his soul, he was had his hands involved in
all kinds of big things, man. I mean, you know, I used to, I
used to work for Eddie, you know?