Jailed Punjab gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Jaggu Bhagwanpuria have been named among 37 people charged in a US-led crackdown on transnational organised crime networks.
Bishnoi and his aide Goldy Brar have been accused of ordering the 2023 assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
The US Department of Justice has in ‘Operation Hard Ball’, said that 24 people have been arrested so far in the US, Canada and Europe, including 11 in California, as part of the years-long investigation into three India-based syndicates.
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"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 in a statement on X.
FBI Los Angeles Assistant Director in Charge Patrick Grandy said the operation struck "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."
According to the indictment, Bishnoi ran his network from an Indian jail cell using smuggled phones, cultivating a public image as a nationalist and religious figure even as he directed assassinations, extortion, drug trafficking and kidnappings across continents. Brar has been named the North American head of the enterprise, and Rohit Godara its European chief.
The indictment also links the group to a November 2023 shooting at a Vancouver residence connected to a prominent Indian actor-singer, and to extortion demands of up to $5 million from victims in Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks earlier this year.
Bhagwanpuria, a former Bishnoi associate turned rival, is named in a separate indictment alleging his syndicate has over 1,000 members and associates worldwide, including more than 100 in the US, and that it corrupted police officers in Punjab to file false cases against rivals and witnesses. A third indictment charges Ravinder Dhanda and associates in Canada with smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine weekly across the US-Canada border.
Investigators said the operation led to the seizure of around 1,000 kg of cocaine, 1 kg of heroin, $40,000 in cash and a dozen firearms, with 34 search warrants executed across the Sacramento and Los Angeles areas. Ten fugitives remain at large, seven of them in the US. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Nijjar's killing had already been a flashpoint in India-Canada relations, after Ottawa alleged in September 2023 that Indian government agents were linked to his murder, a charge New Delhi has repeatedly denied. Bishnoi, once a university-level student politician before turning to crime in Punjab, has for years operated one of the state's most feared gangs from behind bars, with his name previously surfacing in connection with the 2022 killing of singer Sidhu Moosewala. Canada formally designated the Bishnoi network a terrorist entity in September 2025.
Bhagwanpuria, once part of the Bishnoi camp before building a rival syndicate, has for years been active in extortion rackets targeting Punjabi businessmen and NRIs, with his network expanding steadily across the Indian diaspora in Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Both gangs have repeatedly used social media — Facebook posts and jailhouse interviews among them — to claim credit for shootings and threats, a tactic, investigators say, has helped them extend their reach and instil fear well beyond Punjab's borders.