Among the crimes is 2023 killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar
\n California
\nAn international operation against Indian organised crime groups has led to 24 arrests, US officials said Tuesday, including in connection with the assassination in Canada of a prominent Sikh figure.
\nThe sting involved law enforcement officials operating in the United States, Canada and Europe, who had together been probing crime syndicates that engage in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion and drug trafficking.
\nDozens of people have been charged, including two who US officials say ran their global criminal syndicates while in prison in India. All but 10 of them are now in custody.
\n\u201cTransnational criminal gangs who spread fear, drugs, and violence will face the full force of justice and the weight of the federal government,\u201d said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli.
\nAmong the crimes alleged in indictments unveiled on Tuesday is the 2023 killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Punjabi-born campaigner for \u201cKhalistan\u201d \u2014 a separatist movement that seeks an independent homeland for Sikhs.
\nLawrence Bishnoi, 33, of Punjab \u2014 whose organisation is designated as a terrorist enterprise in Canada \u2014 is charged with ordering the killing from his Indian prison cell.
\nOfficials say that in public Bishnoi billed himself as a deeply religious \u201cpatriot,\u201d but used this image to recruit members and associates to his crime syndicate in India, the United States, and elsewhere.
\nIn private, they say, he presided over a sweeping criminal enterprise that spanned multiple continents, personally directing political assassinations, murders, shootings, extortion, kidnappings, drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes.
\nAlso charged is Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38, of Punjab, India, a gangster imprisoned in India who is an associate-turned-rival of Bishnoi. Bhagwanpuria founded his own crime gang that now has over 1,000 members across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
\nBhagwanpuria is charged alongside 16 other defendants with operating a criminal enterprise that engaged in murder-for-hire, drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, weapons trafficking, and other crimes around the world, including in the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Among the crimes is 2023 killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar California An international operation against Indian organised crime groups has led to 24 arrests, US officials said Tuesday, including in connection with the assassination in Canada of a prominent Sikh figure. The sting involved law enforcement officials operating in the United States, Canada […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n