F
ederal prosecutors in the US have made public three major indictments against Lawrence Bishnoi, the incarcerated Indian gangster, and 36 other people affiliated with his crime group and two other competing Indian organized crime syndicates. The US authorities have unveiled this latest set of indictments in Los Angeles this week, which constitutes the biggest crackdown yet against international crime syndicates operating from India.
"Operation Hard Ball" was a joint effort made by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from Canada and the US Customs and Border Protection from Buffalo.
This is the outcome of a number of years of investigation by the federal government regarding the exporting of crimes by crime syndicates from India to North America.
37 accused in the three indictments in this case belong to three different but interrelated criminal syndicates:
- The Bishnoi group is headed by Lawrence Bishnoi, who runs the gang from an Indian jail with the assistance of his trusted lieutenant Satinderjeet Singh, also known as “Goldy Brar," and his associate Rohit Godara.
- The Jaggu Bhagwanpuria Organized Crime Group, operated by Bhagwanpuria, a former associate of Bishnoi who split to form his own Punjab-based gang and become a rival of Bishnoi’s.
- The Dhanda drug trafficking organization is controlled by Canadian-based Vancouver resident Ravinder Singh Dhanda, who is alleged to have trafficked hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine from the United States to Canada every week.
So far, 24 persons have been arrested in connection with the case. 10 persons have fled—7 of them are believed to be in hiding in the United States, 2 others in India, and one in Europe.
Both Bishnoi and Bhagwanpuria are presently in Indian jails facing other criminal charges, but investigators claim that both are operating their international criminal enterprises from inside prison.
Photo: @Ben Nelms/CBC
The most disputed element in the accusations relates to the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was one of the key figures of the Sikh separatist movement, taking place in June 2023. Nijjar was known to be an ardent proponent of Sikh independence, arguing for the creation of Khalistan, and thus branded a terrorist by the Indian government due to these actions.
The accused are reported to have arranged the murder of Nijjar, and two accomplices remain unidentified by the prosecution yet were responsible for the actual shooting. What is especially important is that the name of Nijjar is mentioned in the accusation report only in initials: “H.S.N.” According to the prosecution, the murder of Nijjar and other acts of violence were employed by the defendants in order to terrorize the Sikhs and Indian diaspora in general and continue their extortion plans in Canada and America.
When the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the Indian government for the murder of Nijjar in 2023, a serious diplomatic divide between the two nations had already occurred following the murder of Nijjar. According to India, the claim of the Canadian prime minister was "absurd" and "political."
Adding another twist to the entire story, the RCMP Deputy Commissioner, Lisa Moreland, revealed that Canada's investigation of Nijjar's murder did not uncover any links between Indian government officials and the murder, and on the contrary, India's authorities had been helpful in the investigation process. Thus, the claims made by Trudeau before appear to be baseless and misleading since the case has once again returned to the theory that the killing was an order of the gang members and not the Indian state.
Further, the case involving Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, another Khalistani separatist and a very close friend of Nijjar, was mentioned, as he too was the subject of an assassination attempt in New York just after Nijjar's death.
A citizen of India, Nikhil Gupta, pleaded guilty before a Manhattan federal court regarding his conspiracy with an ex-government official to assassinate Pannun. The ex-government official, Vikash Yadav, is still on the run. In his response to the new indictments, Pannun said that "justice cannot stop with the jailed gangsters, the triggermen, or the intermediaries."
The first of the three indictments secured from the grand jury in February 2026 has charged Bishnoi, Brar, Godaara, and six other persons for conspiring in racketeering; obstruction of commerce through extortion conspiracy; six counts of attempted extortion; and trafficking in controlled substances conspiracy.
The second indictment, made public on June 25, has accused Bhagwanpuria and 16 other defendants of murder-for-hire, distribution of drugs, kidnapping, extortion, and trafficking in weapons. Lastly, the third indictment has named Ravinder Singh Dhanda and Surrey resident Jaskarn Baghri and nine others for the smuggling and distribution of cocaine and methamphetamine between Canada and US borders.
"Today's action is a major blow to the heart of three vicious transnational groups that have threatened and traumatized countless people, victimized whole communities, and murdered innocent victims in a web of vicious violence in the US and internationally," Patrick Grandy, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, said.
"For the RCMP, this is a landmark event, an indication of what can be done when law enforcement agencies cooperate in a cross-border manner, targeting criminal leadership structure as opposed to foot soldiers," RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme told reporters.
Brenda Locke, mayor of Surrey, which has been the epicenter of extortion crimes committed against these networks, lauded the arrests but warned that it was not all over yet. She pointed out that the problem of extortion faced by Surrey and other cities in Canada has been orchestrated by an extremely intelligent global criminal network.
In a similar development, the FBI offered a cash reward of $50,000 for information that could lead to the arrest of Goldy Brar, the accused leader of the Bishnoi group in North America.
