Feds indict dozens in crackdown on international Indian crime syndicates

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday said they had indicted dozens of suspects in a crackdown on Indian crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking, extortion and targeted killings, including the 2023 assassination of a prominent Sikh leader in Canada.

Three separate indictments returned by grand juries in Los Angeles name 37 defendants, including the leaders of two criminal organizations who were operating their networks from Indian prisons.

Eleven suspects were arrested in California, the Justice Department said. One was arrested in Indiana and one in Georgia. Three more were apprehended in Canada, and one suspect was caught in Spain. Seven of those indicted were already 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,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. “Working together, law enforcement in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia are determined to target and dismantle these criminal organizations wherever they operate. There is no safe harbor for these thugs.”

One of the organizations targeted in the crackdown is run by Lawrence Bishnoi, 33, who is imprisoned in India. The purported student activist-turned-gangster personally directed political assassinations, extortions, kidnappings and drug trafficking worldwide from behind bars, the Justice Department claims.

The government accuses Bishnoi and Satinderjeet Singh, who is said to run the organization’s U.S. operations, of ordering the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, identified only by his initials in court filings, in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in British Columbia on June 18, 2023.

The murder of the prominent Sikh religious and political leader sparked a row between Canada and India over suspicions that the Indian government had ordered the killing.

According to federal prosecutors, Bishnoi’s organization targets prominent religious, social and political leaders with violence, using these high-profile acts to terrorize and extort members of the communities in the U.S. and in Canada.

The organization, prosecutors claim, also engages in international drug trafficking and stealing drug shipments from other criminals, including the theft of more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine in the greater Los Angeles area from rival drug trafficking gangs.

In a second indictment, the feds charge Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38, and 16 of his purported associates with running a criminal network around the world that engages in murder-for-hire, drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortions and weapons trafficking.

Bhagwanpuria, who also supposedly runs his syndicate from behind bars in India, is a former associate of Bishnoi, but started his own rival criminal group that now includes about 1,000 members worldwide, with 100 of them operating in the U.S., according to the government.

The group, prosecutors claim, funded its activities through drug trafficking, including through drug transportation networks in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire east of LA County, as well as through illegal firearms dealing.

The third indictment names Ravinder Singh Dhanda, 57, of Vancouver, Canada, and 10 others who the Justice Department says ran large drug transports from the U.S. to Canada.

Dhanda, the government claims, operated a drug distribution network that provided international smuggling services for bulk quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to drug trafficking organizations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. He negotiated transportation rates and logistics with these organizations and subcontracted the storage and transportation of these drugs.

As part of the crackdown, 23 search warrants were executed in the Sacramento area and 11 in the Los Angeles area.

The court dockets for the criminal cases didn’t yet list names for lawyers representing the defendants.

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