The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called it “Operation Hard Ball” — the largest international crackdown yet on India-based organized crime gangs.
Last week, it led to the arrest of 24 suspects across the US, Canada and Spain and the indictment of 37 defendants.
At its center was Lawrence Bishnoi, a jailed Indian gangster whom US prosecutors accuse of directing murders, extortion and international drug trafficking from inside a prison in Gujarat state using smuggled mobile phones.
His alleged deputy, Goldy Brar, also known as Satinderjeet Singh Brar, remains a fugitive with a $50,000 (€43,735) FBI reward on his head.
From Punjab to North America
India on Tuesday welcomed the US indictment of Bishnoi and several associates over the 2023 killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, saying the case underscored the growing threat posed by transnational organized crime.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India and the US shared a “strong and growing” partnership in combating organized crime and terrorism.
But experts say the significance of Operation Hard Ball extends far beyond one gang. It reveals how India-based organized crime gangs have evolved from a domestic law-and-order problem into a transnational criminal enterprise spanning North America, Europe and beyond.
According to the indictment, the Bishnoi organization used violence, drug trafficking and extortion to build influence among the Indian diaspora.
Prosecutors allege the gang demanded millions of dollars from business owners in North America and ordered acts of violence against those who refused to pay.
The indictment also accuses Bishnoi and Brar of directing the 2023 killing of Nijjar outside a gurdwara (Sikhs’ place of worship) in Surrey, British Columbia — a murder that plunged India-Canada relations into crisis. The charging document, however, does not allege any Indian government involvement in the killing.
A new generation of organized crime
India-linked organized crime, however, did not begin with Lawrence Bishnoi.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Indian gangster Dawood Ibrahim created a transnational organized crime syndicate — called the D-Company — operating from Dubai and later Karachi, using smuggling, narcotics, extortion and hawala networks that stretched across Asia, the Gulf and Europe.
His former lieutenant, Chhota Rajan, built a rival network across Southeast Asia before his arrest in Indonesia in 2015. Those syndicates relied on geographical safe havens, political protection and tightly controlled hierarchies.
“Unlike Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company or Chhota Rajan’s syndicate, which operated largely through the Dubai-Mumbai axis using smuggling networks centred on gold, silver and hawala, the Bishnoi gang represents a new generation of Indian organized crime,” Shreekumar Menon, a renowned counter narcotics specialist, told DW.
Its operations stretch across India, Canada and the United States, without the protection of any foreign government.
Instead, investigators say it relies on diaspora networks, digital communications, drug trafficking and firearms to sustain extortion rackets and project influence across continents.
Menon said the expanding Indian diaspora, particularly in North America, has created new markets and opportunities for criminal networks.
Unlike earlier syndicates, the Bishnoi gang operates in a far more technologically sophisticated environment, using encrypted communications and overseas operatives to coordinate activity.
“While it cannot be compared with the scale of Colombian cartels, its emergence in North America’s drug and extortion landscape marks a significant change. Indian gangs were long viewed as regional actors, but the Bishnoi case suggests they are now becoming players in transnational organized crime,” said Menon.
Technology rewrites the underworld
Unlike its predecessors, the Bishnoi network is younger, more decentralized and digitally enabled.
Investigators say the gang combines local criminal networks in India with overseas associates who identify targets, collect extortion payments, move drugs and procure weapons.
Encrypted messaging apps allow jailed leaders to direct operations, while social media aids recruitment, intimidation and propaganda.
That evolution has turned the Indian diaspora into both a source of opportunity and a target.
Business owners in Canada, the US and Britain have reported extortion demands linked to India-based gangs, while overseas operatives allegedly carry out threats far from the gangs’ traditional strongholds in the northern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat.
Crime once rooted in local land disputes and contract killings now follows migration, money and digital communications across borders.
For law enforcement, investigations now require intelligence-sharing, coordinated arrests and tracing encrypted communications and financial flows across borders.
Operation Hard Ball brought together agencies from the US, Canada, Spain and India, reflecting the international nature of the threat.
Can international policing catch up?
Ajay Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, said Operation Hard Ball has exposed a threat that has been evolving for decades rather than revealing an entirely new phenomenon.
“The Bishnoi case doesn’t mark the beginning of the internationalization of Indian organized crime,” Sahni told DW.
“It marks the point at which international law enforcement has finally caught up with a threat that has been evolving for decades.”
Sahni said technology has transformed how criminal networks operate.
“Encrypted communications, cryptocurrencies and cheap international travel have enabled loosely connected cells to collaborate across continents without the rigid hierarchies that older syndicates relied on,” he said.
“The business model hasn’t changed — extortion, narcotics, contract killings and financial crime remain the core revenue streams. What has changed is the speed, reach and resilience of these networks.”
That evolution, he argued, has outpaced law enforcement.
“Organized crime has become increasingly transnational, but policing remains largely national,” he said, pointing out that “criminal networks exploit jurisdictional fragmentation, while investigators must navigate legal, diplomatic and procedural barriers before coordinated action becomes possible.”
Avinash Mohananey, a former senior Indian intelligence officer and organized crime expert, said the Bishnoi case is the latest chapter in the evolution of Indian organized crime, not a departure from it.
“The Bishnoi network is not the first Indian crime syndicate to go global. Like D-Company and the Chhota Rajan gang before it, it has built transnational networks for extortion, contract killings, drug trafficking and safe havens. What ultimately weakened those syndicates was sustained international cooperation,” Mohananey told DW.
“The action by US authorities, working with international partners, has the potential to make a significant dent in the Bishnoi network. Earlier Indian crime syndicates were successfully disrupted only when intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation crossed national borders,” he added.
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
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