International sting arrests 24 over India-based organised crime, linked to murder of Sikh activist

LOS ANGELES, July 8 —An international operation against Indian organised crime groups has led to 24 arrests, US officials said yesterday, including in connection with the assassination in Canada of a prominent Sikh figure.

The sting involved law enforcement officials operating in the United States, Canada and Europe, who had together been probing crime syndicates that engage in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion and drug trafficking.

Dozens of people have been charged, including two who US officials say ran their global criminal syndicates while in prison in India. All but 10 of them are now in custody.

“Transnational criminal gangs who spread fear, drugs, and violence will face the full force of justice and the weight of the federal government,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli.

Among the crimes alleged in indictments unveiled Tuesday is the 2023 killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Punjabi-born campaigner for “Khalistan” — a separatist movement that seeks an independent homeland for Sikhs.

Lawrence Bishnoi, 33, of Punjab — whose organisation is designated as a terrorist enterprise in Canada — is charged with ordering the killing from his Indian prison cell.

Officials say that in public Bishnoi billed himself as a deeply religious “patriot,” but used this image to recruit members and associates to his crime syndicate in India, the United States, and elsewhere.

In private, they say, he presided over a sweeping criminal enterprise that spanned multiple continents, personally directing political assassinations, murders, shootings, extortion, kidnappings, drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes.

Also charged is Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38, of Punjab, India, a gangster imprisoned in India who is an associate-turned-rival of Bishnoi. Bhagwanpuria founded his own crime gang that now has over 1,000 members across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Bhagwanpuria is charged alongside 16 other defendants with operating a criminal enterprise that engaged in murder-for-hire, drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, weapons trafficking, and other crimes around the world, including in the United States and Canada.

Ravinder Singh Dhanda, 57, of Vancouver, Canada, is one of 11 people charged with a massive drug smuggling operation that authorities say saw them import hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine each week from the US into Canada.

“Today’s coordinated operation strikes at the heart of three brutal transnational organisations that have terrorised families, exploited communities, and stolen lives through ruthless acts of violence in the US and abroad,” said Patrick Grandy, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. — AFP