The India-based gang behind Canada’s extortion disaster sent a letter to a B.C. police station final 12 months boasting that it had 1,000 foot troopers prepared to perform shootings, a police officer revealed on Thursday.
Testifying at a deportation listening to, the extortion investigator described the letter from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang that was delivered to a police station in Abbotsford, B.C., on Aug. 13, 2025.
“Police really obtained a letter addressed from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang that was sent to a police station,” Const. Kevin St. Louis informed the Immigration and Refugee Board.
“This particular letter outlined basically their legal group, the place they talked about having upwards of 1,000 people which might be prepared to perform these shootings as part of the group,” he stated.
“It additionally alludes to how each enterprise wants to pay their tax, which I feel clearly demonstrates the financial acquire that this group is wanting to acquire because of these extortions.”
The Abbotsford Police Division confirmed the letter.
“Particulars of this letter have been shared with our regulation enforcement companions engaged in combating the extortion disaster throughout Canada,” Sgt. Paul Walker informed International Information.
“Detectives working in our inside AbbyPD extortion activity power (Operation Neighborhood Protect) started to examine the origin of this letter and the contents spoken about inside,” he added.
“I’m not able to remark additional on any of the main points contained inside the letter or investigative steps taken since.”
The letter emerged at a deportation listening to for an alleged member of an Edmonton-based extortion gang linked to violence in three provinces.
Showing as a witness, St. Louis gave a uncommon briefing on the Bishnoi crime group, which was positioned on Canada’s checklist of designated terrorist teams final September.
The Edmonton Police Service detective is a member of Mission Al-Extortion, which is investigating organized crime concentrating on members of Alberta’s South Asian neighborhood.
Headed by Lawrence Bishnoi, who operates out of the Indian jail the place he has been held since 2015, the crime group has set off against the law wave concentrating on South Asian Canadians.
To extort cash from its victims, the Bishnoi gang depends on Indian nationals in Canada who’re paid “small” quantities to conduct shootings however are additionally looking for a way of belonging, the detective testified.
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“I feel quite a lot of them have a look at it as sort of being part of a corporation or a gaggle,” he informed the Immigration and Refugee Board, including “quite a lot of them are being focused at colleges.”
“Each person who we’ve recognized throughout this investigation is a short lived overseas employee or on a pupil visa and comparatively new to Canada.”
“It sounds sort of humorous to say however what we frequently see with legal organizations and gangs is that it sort of offers you that feeling of being concerned and sense of neighborhood while you’re with this particular group,” St. Louis stated.
The extortion gangs contact South Asian enterprise house owners and people to demand giant sums of cash. If the victims don’t pay, their houses and companies are sprayed with gunfire, the officer stated.
The calls for for cash are at all times revamped WhatsApp, typically referencing Lawrence Bishnoi or his one-time right-hand man Goldy Brar, he stated.
However many of the calls come from one other Bishnoi member named Jora Sidhu.
“The one constant title really making the extortions was Mr. Jora Sidhu,” St. Louis stated. “We consider that Mr. Jora Sidhu was really not in Canada whereas making these calls for through WhatsApp.”
“That being stated, we consider he was the first particular person who would deal with communications for this extortions,” the officer testified, including the RCMP had recognized him by means of voice-matching.
The Bishnoi group fractured final fall due to a falling out between its India-based namesake and Brar, his Canadian lieutenant. After that, the group’s techniques modified, he added.
Following the rift, gang members started taking pictures at houses and companies with out first contacting the house owners to demand cash, which he stated mirrored a level of “disorganization.”
“I feel one of many largest modifications that we noticed was a change within the normal modus operandi of those teams, and the way they carried out these acts,” he stated.
Copycat teams have additionally emerged, capitalizing on the worry of extortion gangs, he stated. However whereas they name-drop the Bishnoi gang and its leaders, they don’t conduct shootings, St. Louis stated.
The officer additionally described the challenges confronted by investigators, which embody the usage of encrypted messaging functions with worldwide cellphone numbers.
The gangs additionally transfer firearms between provinces, making them “virtually not possible” to hint. In a single case, a gun was utilized in extortion shootings in two provinces inside a 24-hour interval, he stated.
“The tempo at which these firearms are being moved between completely different provinces made it very troublesome to find and seize many of those firearms,” the police detective stated.
The testimony got here on the deportation listening to of Jashandeep Singh, an alleged member of an extortion gang that has been linked to shootings in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario.
A video seized by police confirmed Singh aiming a gun on the head of one other man, St. Louis stated. The identical firearm was linked to an extortion taking pictures in Surrey, B.C.
Singh appeared at his digital deportation listening to from what seemed like a bed room, with a group of stuffed animals behind him.
The case is the Canada Border Providers Company’s newest try to sort out the extortion disaster in Canadian cities by expelling these concerned.
Provinces with giant Canadian-Sikh populations have been worst-hit, notably B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario.
On Monday, Peel police introduced the arrests of 17 suspected members of a gang known as For Brothers that was extorting South Asian enterprise house owners.
However deportations have develop into the principle instrument in opposition to the extortion teams, since most members should not Canadians.
As of Might 7, the CSA had opened 446 investigations into extortion suspects and issued 118 removing orders, whereas 55 had already been deported.
The majority of the instances, 188, have been within the Toronto area, adopted by B.C. with 132 and the Prairies, the place 126 investigations had been launched.
“When police determine people who could also be in violation of the Immigration and Refugee Safety Act, they notify the CBSA, which conducts immigration investigations that may lead to enforcement actions, together with removing from Canada,” the CBSA stated.
An inside RCMP report stated the Bishnoi group additionally engages in murder-for-hire in Canada, and has been “appearing on behalf of the Indian authorities.”
The RCMP believes the Bishnoi gang was employed by India to assassinate B.C. Sikh chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023 in an alleged act of transnational repression.
The Indian authorities allegedly focused Nijjar as a result of he was a number one activist within the Khalistan motion that seeks independence for India’s Punjab.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities was implicated in a second tried assassination of a Canadian Khalistan activist who resides in New York.
Greater than a dozen different Canadians, most of them Khalistan motion activists, have been warned by police that their lives are at risk.
India denies any involvement, and as lately as this week its high envoy in Ottawa informed the Globe and Mail that Canada’s nationwide safety companies had been “compromised.”
Requested if India’s Excessive Commissioner can be expelled for his remarks, Overseas Minister Anita Anand’s employees didn’t reply.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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