Alvin Junior Lupichuk charged with five weapons offences, including possession of a sawed-off shotgun.

Alvin Junior Lupichuk, 28, is back in custody after his arrest late last week. He’s charged with five weapons offences, including possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Police allege they found him in possession of the deadly weapon and ammunition, along with quantities of cocaine and marijuana and some ill-gotten cash last Friday. Police refused Monday to comment on the circumstances of Lupichuk’s arrest, claiming it’s part of an ongoing organized crime investigation. In March, 2008, police began investigating after viewing two myspace.com videos featuring young men in the basement of a home filled with expensive-looking recording equipment waving around a sawed-off shotgun. Officers tracked down the identities of the men and location of the home and obtained a search warrant.
Police burst inside the Jefferson Avenue residence and found a small quantity of marijuana, along with a 42-inch television stolen from Ontario, an amplifier stolen from B.C. and two keyboards stolen from a Winnipeg church, Crown attorney Geoff Bayly said during a bail hearing for Lupichuk last year. A search of a car on the street outside the home resulted in the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun similar to the one police saw in the rap videos. Lupichuk allegedly told officers he needed the gun “for protection” from a rival rap-group in the city. Lupichuk is a member of local gangster-rap crew NorthSide Productions (NSP) which claims to have a long-standing dispute with rival city rappers Heatbag Productions.
In a self-produced video which is believed to have triggered the police investigation, Lupichuk and his crew threaten to shoot a member of Heatbag as many as 36 times. Lupichuk posted a picture of his list of bail conditions on a social-networking site showing he was instructed by the court to abide by a strict curfew and not contact or communicate with members of Heatbag. At the time of last year’s incident, it appeared that Lupichuk’s crew was possibly gearing up to escalate a long-standing dispute the group claims to have with the rival rap clan. Police also charged Lupichuk with a bail violation for not keeping the peace.