On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced the arrest of 24 defendants connected to three different India-based criminal organizations. In conjunction with other law enforcement agencies in Canada and Europe, the Justice Department launched Operation Hard Ball as part of a “years-long federal investigation into Indian crime syndicates that engage in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion, the trafficking of…narcotics across international borders, and other crimes around the world.” In total, 37 defendants, including two men who are accused of running global organized crime syndicates from prison cells in India, face multiple charges of cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking along with other felony offenses.
As of this week, the Justice Department and their international partners have seized approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and one kilogram of heroin, along with $40,000 in cash and over a dozen firearms.
The breakdown of Operation Hard Ball includes eleven arrests in California alone, with 23 search warrants issued in the Sacramento area and 11 issued in Los Angeles. Arrests in Indiana, Georgia, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, and Spain further added to the totals.
Three powerful criminal syndicates are at the heart of Operation Hard Ball. The most prominent is the Bishnoi gang. Listed as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government, the Bishnoi gang is named after leader Lawrence Bishnoi, 33, who currently sits behind bars in India. Besides the criminal underworld, the syndicate also has ties to a 15th century religious sect in the Indian province of Rajasthan, where a black antelope known as the Blackbuck is worshipped and is considered the reincarnation of the medieval guru.
The Bishnoi gang is known for drug trafficking, targeted killings, racketeering, extortion, and other crimes. The group is also accused of infiltrating Cricket Canada for the purposes of gambling and match-fixing. In 2023, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist and one of the leaders of the Khalistan movement, died after being gunned down in a Surrey, British Columbia parking lot by an assassin with ties to the Bishnoi gang.
The other major syndicate targeted by Operation Hard Ball raids, the Bhagwanpuria gang, is led by 38-year-old Jaggu Bhagwanpuria. Based in the northern Punjab state, the Bhagwanpuria gang are rivals of the Bishnoi syndicate and are predominately Sikh in make-up. The Bhagwanpuria gang are charged with being an international criminal organization with membership based in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. It is believed that the gang includes 1,000 members in total, with 100 residing in the U.S.
The indictment in United States v. Bhagwanpuria, et al. outlines shocking levels of corruption, including several accusations of Bhagwanpuria gang-associated police officers in India threatening and intimidating witnesses. The Bhagwanpuria gang uses false information and extortion schemes to target rivals and their families in India, where the victims are subjected to harassment from law enforcement and suffer through endless court cases. One example taken from Stockton, California in April of this year shows that the gang’s tactics have come to the U.S. 22-year-old Gurlal Singh, an illegal alien from India, reportedly used contacts in India’s Punjab state to get a victim, the victim’s father, and the victim’s sister accused of murdering an individual known only as “B.S.” This false accusation led to a corrupt law enforcement official extorting the victim and their family during the investigation of the case. In a similar story, 26-year-old Gurdev Singh is alleged to have extorted a family in the Midwest with threats of violence (“…put a bullet in your kids”) while in ICE custody.
A third syndicate, this one led by Ravinder Singh Dhanda, 57, of Surrey, British Columbia is accused of transporting, smuggling, and distributing hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine on a weekly basis in the U.S. and Canada.
Operation Hard Ball continues apace. If convicted, most of the accused face prison sentences of a minimum of ten years to a maximum of life. The Justice Department states that there several wanted fugitives currently on the run across the world, highlighting the trans-national nature of Indian organized crime.
