Prateek Tanmay
2 min readNew DelhiJul 8, 2026 01:45 AM IST
Lawrence Bishnoi, the imprisoned leader of the Bishnoi gang, is among those charged in the United States with allegedly ordering the assassination of prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada’s British Columbia three years ago. Newly unsealed indictments by the US Department of Justice show that 37 people have been charged in the United States with crimes ranging from extortion and drug trafficking to kidnapping and shootings.
The charges include several individuals linked to three prominent criminal gangs, including the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, in what authorities described as a cross-border crackdown on organised crime. Prosecutors said three defendants were arrested in Canada, while 11 others remain fugitives across the United States, India and Europe.
As per a statement by the US Department of Justice on July 7, “Law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and Europe have arrested 24 defendants – 11 of them in California – connected to three India-based transnational organised crime groups charged with a litany of criminal acts, including the assassination in Canada in 2023 of a prominent Indian political and religious figure”.
Dubbed “Operation Hard Ball”, the investigation is the result of a years-long federal probe into Indian crime syndicates allegedly involved in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion, trafficking of large quantities of narcotics across international borders, and other organised criminal activities affecting communities around the world, particularly the Indian diaspora.
The Canadian government in September 2025 designated the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity.
