Federal officials announced a sweeping crackdown on Tuesday against a vast criminal network that preyed on Indian diaspora communities around the world and has been linked to the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia three years ago.
The authorities in Los Angeles said the action, “Operation Hard Ball,” was the result of a broad investigation into a dizzying array of drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes choreographed from India by jailed kingpins using international operatives and smuggled cellphones. It led to more than a dozen new arrests, most occurring in California.
Indictments unsealed in Los Angeles included charges against more than three dozen people — some already in prison — including Lawrence Bishnoi, 33, a convicted gang leader who has been behind bars in India for more than a decade, and Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38, an ex-associate of Mr. Bishnoi’s who became a rival and, the authorities say, founded his own criminal enterprise in India’s Punjab state.
Other defendants were accused of supporting the criminal network by smuggling guns and narcotics along long-haul trucking routes on the West Coast between Canada and Mexico. Several of the defendants are truckers, federal officials said.
Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles field office, said that 11 people were arrested in California, one in Indiana, one in Georgia, one in Spain and three in Vancouver, British Columbia. Several others facing charges were already in custody, but the authorities were still searching for additional gang members who were indicted.
The arrests, he said, dismantled vast criminal organizations that had “terrorized families, exploited communities and stolen lives through ruthless acts of violence in the United States and abroad.”
“They prey on people here in the U.S. who still have ties back in India,” said Bill Essayli, the top prosecutor in the Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney’s office. One of the defendants, he said, was a police chief in India who was accused of participating in a scheme to extort $400,000 from a Los Angeles family by falsely charging their relatives in India with murder until they agreed to pay.
Federal authorities said the investigation began in response to rising violence in communities associated with the Indian diaspora, particularly in Canada, Europe and the United States. The lead prosecutor, Declan T. Conroy, said that hundreds of law enforcement officers had been involved.
“This has been years in the making,” Mr. Conroy said.
In one particularly high-profile incident, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, a Sikh nationalist leader from India’s Punjab state, was shot and killed in June 2023 at a temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia, southeast of Vancouver. Three months later, citing international intelligence, Justin Trudeau, then Canada’s prime minister, accused India of orchestrating the brazen killing.
The charge set off furious denunciations between the two countries as Indian authorities denied any part in the assassination. On Tuesday, one of the indictments charged that Mr. Bishnoi and Satinderjeet Singh, 32, a childhood friend of Mr. Bishnoi’s known as “Goldy Brar,” had engineered the assassination of Mr. Nijjar, but it did not implicate the Indian government.
Mr. Singh remains at large, and the F.B.I. is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and extradition, Mr. Grandy said on Tuesday.
Another indictment accused Mr. Bhagwanpuria of operating a transnational syndicate that partnered with corrupt Indian law enforcement officers to extort the families of immigrants in the United States, Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In one recent case, prosecutors said, a 26-year-old member of the Bhagwanpuria gang in Stockton, Calif., tried to extort a family while he was being held in ICE custody.
The gangs also operated trafficking routes that would move drugs and firearms into Canada from the United States, according to an indictment, with some drug shipments moving on a weekly basis.
“My client is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Oliver P. Cleary, a lawyer in Palm Springs, Calif., wrote on behalf of Justin Guzman, who was among several defendants who were indicted on charges of trafficking cocaine for the crime syndicates in San Bernardino County. “He looks forward to challenging the indictment in court.”
Several other lawyers listed on a Los Angeles federal court calendar for the defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Three Canadians were arrested in British Columbia, while a fourth is believed to be in Europe, said Michael Duheme, the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. One of the three is Ravinder Singh Dhanda, the Canadian leader of a drug trafficking group, who has been a “high value target” to Canadian police for some time, Mr. Duheme said.
Mr. Dhanda’s group is accused of working with an official at the Canada Border Services Agency to skirt enforcement and smuggle cocaine and methamphetamine shipments into the country.
The authorities said the shipments were typically concealed in long-haul semi-trucks from Greater Los Angeles. In some cases, they added, farm trucks from working farms were used to hide narcotics en route to Canada.
Local police in municipalities around Toronto and Vancouver have redoubled their efforts to crack down on extortion rings targeting the Indian diaspora since Mr. Nijjar’s assassination. The victims tend to be business owners in sectors that include retail, hospitality and real estate, according to Canada’s financial intelligence agency.
Vjosa Isai contributed reporting from Toronto and Orlando Mayorquín from Los Angeles.
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