Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: US Says Bishnoi, Goldy Brar Ordered Nijjar Assassination
Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: US federal indictments unsealed in California tie Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar to Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s 2023 murder, as 37 face charges in a 3-gang crackdown.
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, July 8
Three sweeping federal indictments unsealed this week in California have laid out how Punjab-origin gangster networks allegedly built a transnational empire of assassination, extortion and drug trafficking stretching from Los Angeles to Surrey, British Columbia, to Punjab’s own jail cells.
The US Department of Justice announced 24 arrests across the United States, Canada and Europe under an investigation codenamed “Operation Hard Ball,” targeting three rival India-based organized crime groups: the Lawrence Bishnoi network, the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria network, and a third syndicate led by Vancouver’s Ravinder Singh Dhanda, alias “John Wick.” Thirty-seven defendants face charges in total, with ten fugitives still being hunted — seven in the US, two in India, and one in Europe.
Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: The Nijjar link
Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: The most significant single allegation is buried in the Bishnoi indictment’s overt acts: that Lawrence Bishnoi and his North American lieutenant, Satinderjeet Singh (better known as Goldy Brar) ordered the June 18, 2023 assassination of a man identified only as “H.S.N.” as he left the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia.
Federal prosecutors have confirmed H.S.N. is Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Sikh separatist leader whose killing triggered a diplomatic rupture between India and Canada. The indictment alleges two other unnamed co-conspirators pulled the trigger, with Bishnoi providing a photograph and multiple addresses to facilitate the killing, while Bishnoi publicly took responsibility.
The indictment also connects the same network to a separate, previously prosecuted plot: shortly after Nijjar’s murder, another Sikh separatist and close associate of his, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was targeted for assassination in New York, a plot the FBI thwarted, and Canadian and American authorities have alleged both plots were ordered at the direction of the Indian government itself.
An Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, pleaded guilty earlier this year in Manhattan federal court to conspiring in the Pannun plot; his alleged co-conspirator, former Indian government official Vikash Yadav, remains a fugitive.
Three networks, one blueprint
Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: According to the indictments, all three organizations followed a similar operational template: leaders directing operations from Indian jail cells via smuggled phones, decentralized cells of recruits — often minors from impoverished Punjab villages — carrying out the actual violence, and a business model built on extortion of diaspora businessmen and cultural figures alongside bulk cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking across the US-Canada border.
The Bishnoi network
Lawrence Bishnoi Nijjar Indictment: Nine defendants including Bishnoi, Brar, European chief Rohit Godara and lieutenant Sukhraj Singh Kang face a racketeering conspiracy count, a Hobbs Act extortion conspiracy count, six counts of attempted extortion, and a drug trafficking conspiracy count involving cocaine and methamphetamine. An elaborate FBI sting used an undercover agent posing as a debtor in Los Angeles; wiretapped calls quoted in the indictment show Brar personally threatening the target — “I don’t mess around… it’ll take me an hour to finish you” — while lieutenant “Bhulwan” warned the family would suffer if payments stopped.
Separately, the indictment ties the group to threats and extortion demands sent to victims in Fontana, Thousand Oaks and Stockton, California, and to Surrey and the UK. Between March 2024 and July 2025, the enterprise is accused of stealing roughly 520 kilograms of cocaine from rival trafficking groups in the Los Angeles area.
The Bhagwanpuria network
Seventeen defendants tied to founder Jaggu Bhagwanpuria — a former Bishnoi associate turned rival — face racketeering, kidnapping, weapons trafficking and drug conspiracy charges. The indictment’s most unusual allegation involves Punjab police officer, Gurinderjit Singh, accused of working with defendant Gurlal Singh to falsely implicate a murder victim’s father and sister in the killing, then demanding payment to have them removed from the case — an extortion scheme run through the machinery of India’s own criminal justice system rather than through threats alone. The indictment also documents a weapons-trafficking operation selling AK-47 parts, ghost guns and a machinegun conversion device out of parking lots in Fontana, Santa Clarita, Bakersfield and Stevenson Ranch.
The Dhanda network
A third indictment is against Dhanda and Surrey’s Jaskarn Baghri and nine others, alleging weekly cross-border shipments of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine, reportedly assisted by a source inside Canada’s border agency who tipped off smugglers to inspection timing and enforcement activity.
Official reaction
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said transnational criminal gangs that spread fear, drugs and violence would face “the full force of justice,” adding there is “no safe harbor for these thugs.” FBI Los Angeles field office leadership framed the operation as striking at organizations that had “terrorized families” and “stolen lives” through violence carried out inside the United States.
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