From Canadian scrutiny to FBI’s Operation Hard Ball: How net tightened around Lawrence Bishnoi

The Canadian authorities first referred to the Bishnoi gang on October 14, 2024. During a nationally televised RCMP press conference on alleged foreign interference and criminal activity in Canada, Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin identified the Bishnoi group, saying investigators believed it was being used to target pro-Khalistan activists in Canada.

Though then the remarks were connecvted to the June 18, 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, an incident that had plunged India-Canada ties into a diplomatic crisis, it was the spate of extortion-related shootings that had prompted the RCMP to investigate the Bishnoi link.

One of the prominent cases involved Abjeet Kingra, 26, and Vikram Sharma, 24, who were accused in a Surrey extortion-linked shooting case that led investigators to the Bishnoi gang. Kingra was arrested in October 2024 and later pleaded guilty to arson and firearms offences committed, according to court records, “at the behest of the Bishnoi gang”.

Investigators also linked Kingra to the September 2024 shooting at the Colwood, British Columbia, residence of Punjabi singer AP Dhillon. Authorities alleged that Kingra filmed the attack using body-camera style footage and uploaded it online so that the Bishnoi gang could claim responsibility. Investigators said the attack was allegedly carried out in retaliation for Dhillon featuring Bollywood actor Salman Khan in one of his music videos, and that Kingra was paid about 4,000 Canadian dollars for the job.

Sharma is believed to have fled Canada and is suspected to be in India. During deportation proceedings in June this year, Kingra claimed the gang had threatened him and his family in India because it believed he had cooperated with investigators. However, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board ordered his deportation after concluding that he was a member of a criminal organisation.

By mid-2025, the focus had shifted sharply to organised extortion targeting South Asian businesses, particularly in British Columbia. These incidents became frequent enough to attract political attention.

On June 17, 2025, British Columbia Premier David Eby announced that he would formally request the federal government to designate the Lawrence Bishnoi gang a terrorist organisation, saying repeated incidents of violence and intimidation were eroding public confidence in the justice system.

The demand gathered momentum after Abbotsford Police received a letter in August 2025 purportedly from the Bishnoi gang claiming it had “1,000 foot soldiers” ready to carry out shootings across Canada as part of its extortion operations. The letter later surfaced during proceedings before Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, where an Edmonton police investigator cited it as evidence of the gang’s reach and its attempts to intimidate victims.

Canada’s financial intelligence agency, FINTRAC, also flagged money laundering linked to extortion networks operating in the gang’s name. It pointed to a pattern in which business owners in Greater Toronto and Metro Vancouver first received threats and were then asked to make large payments.

On September 29, 2025, Canada formally listed the Bishnoi Gang as a terrorist entity under the country’s Criminal Code.

Announcing the decision, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said the government had concluded that the organisation had “knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated terrorist activity” through murders, shootings, arson, extortion and intimidation that had created “a climate of insecurity” within South Asian communities.

The RCMP investigations took a cross-border turn when a victim who moved to Canada after helping Indian law enforcement identify and arrest two suspected blackmailers began to receive death threats from a California resident identified as Jasmeet Singh. Later the US authorities charged him with making the threats on behalf of the Bishnoi gang.

In one documented case from the Sacramento FBI office (December 2023), Bishnoi himself allegedly contacted a victim whose vehicle was later fired upon outside his home.

In January this year, Global News reported details from a classified RCMP national security assessment describing the Bishnoi organisation as “a violent criminal organisation with an active, continually expanding presence” in Canada and several other countries.

Throughout this period, the RCMP and local police forces documented a recurring pattern in which threats were issued over phone calls or messaging applications, followed by arson attacks or shootings if extortion demands were not met.

These investigations laid the groundwork for this week’s coordinated US-Canada action under Operation Hard Ball.

In the latest development, the US Department of Justice, supported by the RCMP, identified Satinderjeet Singh alias Goldy Brar as the North American leader of the Bishnoi enterprise. It alleged that Brar, along with others, “effectively spoke for Bishnoi and helped direct the actions of members and associates of the Bishnoi enterprise worldwide, including acts of violence … in the United States, Canada and elsewhere.”

Strangely, Goldy Brar, who was added to the BOLO (Be On the Lookout) Program’s top 25 most wanted fugitives list in Canada around May 2023, was quietly removed from it in 2024. This led to protests by Indian officials who wanted him in connection with the murder of Sidhu Moosewala in Punjab in May 2022.