Front Burner - Gunshots, arson, threats: B.C.’s extortion crisis

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

After meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have announced they would restart trade talks.It’s a long way from where the two countries have been for the last several years. Relations blew up in 2023 after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused agents of India’s government of being involved in the murder of a Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.Then, last year, the RCMP publicly accused such agents of being involved in a campaign of homicides, extortions and threats targeting the South Asian community on Canadian soil. Recently, the director of CSIS suggested that the problem hasn’t gone away.In B.C.’s Lower Mainland, over 100 reports of extortion were made in the last year.Two CBC reporters who have been covering this issue give us a closer look at what exactly has been happening on the ground in Canada, particularly when it comes to extortion, who might be behind it, and how this all connects to the larger context of a thawing relationship with India.Baneet Braich is based out of Abbotsford, B.C. And Evan Dyer is with CBC’s Parliamentary bureau.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Is your home ready for the next big snowstorm? You can take action to help protect your home from extreme weather. Discover prevention tips that can help you be climate ready at keep it intact.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hey everybody, I'm Jamie Poisson. In the latest sign of thawing relations, on Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that they would restart trade talks. The two leaders had been meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in South Africa last week. It's a long way from where we've been for the last several years.

Relations blew up in 2023 after Justin Trudeau got up in the House of Commons and accused agents of India's government of being involved in the murder of a sick activist in Surrey, B.C. Last year, the RCMP publicly accused such agents of being involved in a campaign of homicides, extortions, and threats on Canadian soil, targeting the South Asian community here. Actually, the director of CIS suggested that the problem has not gone away, which will not come as a shock to the people who showed up at a town hall in Surrey that my colleagues held the other week. Many of them are living under fear of extortion and violence daily. My street has been shot up three times, 126A. Three times our street has been shot up. What does the cops do come?

They park a car in front, leave it there for a couple weeks, and they're gone. My kids are scared, my family's scared, the whole neighbors are scared. In BC's Lower Mainland, there's been over 100 reports of extortion just in the last year. So today on the pod, we wanted to take a closer look at what exactly has been happening on the ground here in Canada, particularly when it comes to extortion. What we know about who is behind it and how this is. all connects to this larger context of a cozier relationship with India. Two of my colleagues are here with me today, Beneath Brach, based out of Abbottesford. Evan Dyer is in Ottawa, and they have both spent

a lot of time covering this. Hello to you both. Hi, Jamie. Hi, Beneath. Hi, Evan. It's really great to have both of you here today. So, Evan, why don't we start with the news? Since Carney came into office, we have seen moves to get closer economically to India. We've talked about this on the show about how this is the strategy in part to shake off some dependence on the U.S. But just how significant is it, you think, that Canada and India have set plans to negotiate this trade deal? Well, I mean, I think there's kind of two questions there. One is how significant is it economically and in terms of the trade benefits that Canada might get? And then the second,

The second question is how significant is it going to be for the other issues between Canada and India? And that really, part of that question is, to what extent is India willing to set aside its political issues with Canada and its concerns about calisthani or six separatist activism in Canada in order to advance trade? So, you know, obviously India is the world's biggest country by population and it's a growing, not a booming economy, but a growing economy. And so there are gains to be made there. And I think that the prime minister was talking about potentially doubling trade with India by the end of the decade, which would mean, you know, several pends of, I think something like another $35 billion worth of trade value, if that were to come to fruition. Canada has quite an actual strong commercial relationship with India.

We are one of the largest, for example, foreign investors in India. Canada is. And there have been tight ties. What we're looking to do is to put that on a sound footing through potential, I mean, a potential trade agreement between the two countries, which give protections to our businesses, protections to Indian businesses, clear set of rules, dispute mechanisms and others, and build on those. So there certainly are benefits there to be had, and I think the calculation for both countries has been changed, by the tariff actions of Donald Trump. So it's not just Canada that was hit by U.S. tariffs. Of course, so is India.

Mm-hmm. Good point. And so both countries now have reasons to look to diversify trade. And for both of them, that just moves trade up the list of priorities. I want to come back to how this could affect the issues around transnational violence, around foreign meddling a little bit later. But I think it would be helpful for us just to establish what exactly has been going on Canadian soil here. And what we know and don't know about how involved Indian government agents have been and how high up it goes, etc. So Evan, we have done the Nijar killing with you

before. U.S. court filings alleged that someone high up an India spy agency was working with violent gang members to arrange hits on sick activists in the U.S. and also here. And Nizjar was allegedly one of those hits. But it goes beyond this and broadly when Law enforcement here last year alleged that Indian government agents have been involved in this campaign essentially of homicides, extortion, and threats. What are they talking about exactly? Right. Well, the RCMP made really an extraordinary statement on October 14th. And actually, they drew attention to how extraordinary it was in the opening of that statement. They said, we don't usually do this, but...

We feel it is necessary to do so at this time due to the significant threat to public safety in our country. We're going to make a statement about an ongoing campaign of violence in Canada involving agents of the Indian government. For the past few years, and more recently, law enforcement agencies in Canada, including the RCMP, have successfully investigated and charged a significant number of individuals for their direct involvement in homicides, extortions, and other criminal acts of violence. And they said we had, you know, this was one particular deputy. commissioner of the RCMP who had made an effort to speak to the Indians and to try to sort of address these concerns through back channels and said he had no luck doing that. And that was why the RCMP chose to go public. And what they said was that the RCMP believed Indian agents wanted to create

an atmosphere of lawlessness and fear in Canada, that they were interested. And I had private conversations also with the RCMP about this, where they expanded on it a little bit, that they were interested in using extortion. So extortion is not just a means for gangs to raise money, but the Indian government had an interest in extortion as a way to build a narrative that Canada was somehow out of control and then try to tie back that lawlessness to the presence of Calistani agitators, six separatists in Canada. And to try to say, look, see the Canadians, because they're failing to control these groups, are laying gangs run wild. And now we see the consequences, blowing back on them in the form of this crime wave of extortion. And when extortion money

isn't paid, it's followed by arson, or it's followed by drive-by shootings, and so on. So the RTMP was making it clear that, in their view, the Indian government was behind all of that and was deliberately stoking criminality in Canada. Could you just elaborate for me a little bit more on why the Indian government would want that? Like what it would do for them? So the Indian government has for years had issues with the presence of groups like Kalistan Tiger Force and other groups that wanted it to create a separate Sikh homeland in Punjab. In India itself, this is not a huge issue. But in the diaspora, it remains a live issue.

The diaspora is, of course, made up largely of people who, not entirely, but largely of people who fled India in the wake of the 1984 riots and pogroms. That followed the assassination of Prime Minister, Derek Gandhi. Mrs. Gonday was apparently shot at her home in New Delhi by two members of her own security guard. Reports are that she were shot eight to ten times with four bullets, striking her in the lower abdomen. The security guards who shot Mrs. Gandhi were reportedly members of India's Sikh minority. So it led to a lot of violence that there were murders, rapes, and so on. The fight for Khalistan.

In the 1980s, murderous acts by some Sikh separatists led to the military's Golden Temple Massacre. The goal was to remove separatists Sikh militants from the Temple complex. Hundreds of people died in the six-day operation, soldiers, Sikh militants, and civilians. And so you have a diaspora. that's partly traumatized by those events and angry about those events and that has not given up on the cause of an independent Kalistan. And they, of course, have connections back to the homeland. And the Indian government is always worried that this ideology, which it's defeated at home, but which remains alive in the diaspora, is going to spring back into India through

these channels and, you know, that they'll have another insurgency on their hands. And so that's what the Indian government would be trying to prevent. And he mentioned gangs. Could you just explain to me the rule that gangs, particularly the Bishnoi gang, which has been designated as a terrorist entity here now, play in all of this? Well, the RCMP say that one of the fastest growing areas of national security concern for them, and this is not just India, although India is the most striking example, of course, is a kind of a nexus between foreign governments and multinational gangs. governments using criminal gangs rather than their own intelligence agents operating directly to sow chaos in other countries, to carry out assassinations of dissidents, to harass communities that they want to have some kind of control or influence over overseas.

And here in the case of the Indians, the gang of choice appears to have been the Bishnoy gang, which is a gang started by a man who calls himself Lawrence Bishnoy, It's not actually his birth name, but that's the name that he adopted when he was heavily involved in student politics in the Punjab, and generally believed to have committed his first killings in that context. Then branching out into extortion, there is an organized crime world in Punjab that partly makes its money through drug trafficking, but also extorts businesses. And over time, he apparently developed this network of enforcers, hit men who were able to, collect these extortion payments for him, but he himself has been in an Indian prison for several years now, many years. And that doesn't seem to put much of a crimp in his activities, because he's still able to get on the phone from his cell and even claim responsibility for certain

actions over social media, all from his cell in Indian custody. And that, of course, just accentuates this sensation that the Indian government is allowing Lawrence Bichnoy quite a bit of latitude in order to be able to use him in these kinds of things. Are your pipes ready for a deep freeze? You can take action to help protect your home from extreme weather. Discover prevention tips that can help you be climate ready at keep it intact.com. This ascent is. for everyone you need grit to climb this high this often you've got to be an underdog that

always over delivers you've got to be six thousand five hundred hospital staff one thousand doctors all doing so much with so little you've got to be scarborough defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights and you can help us keep climbing donate at lovescarbro Okay, beneath, can I bring you in here? I want to drill down on the extortion stuff and really get a clear picture of what is happening. And just can you walk me through one of these alleged extortions, like the scheme? And how does it generally play out? How does it start? Well, Jeremy, there's numerous ways, really. So in Abbotsford, you know, it really began with letters that were sent out to threatening businesses. And police told me it was pretty much nonviolent for some time. You know, there would be phone calls, there would be text messages that are demanding money from victims. And over the couple of years, that's escalated.

So victims tell me, you know, they can't sleep at night because they're woken up in the middle of the night with calls from these unknown numbers or texts. And they're hearing these voices on their phone. They're saying, they're demanding them to pay substantial amounts of money, sometimes a million dollars, sometimes two million dollars, for example. And from the calls that I've heard, you know, they give a couple of days for the victim to respond, and then they call back with continuing those threats as well. So, and then the violence essentially, it escalates.

You can see the bullet holes that are left in homes and businesses. You can see the marks of arson, for example, on the road where people's vehicles have been torched. They've been lit on fire in neighborhoods. And really what this is doing is. Yes, it is creating that fear. It is creating a lot of frustration. So recently I spoke to one extortion victim who said that what happened was he got a call in the early morning, went to his business and was was just shocked to see caution tape and about seven bullets in his business. He said he had no idea

about this, never received an extortion threat before. And what had happened was that his business was shot up first, and then they called him after that demanding $1 million. And when we're talking about victims, I know we're talking about people being targeted who are part of the South Asian community. But like if you drill down into that, who is being targeted generally? Is it people who would be considered sick activists? Is it anybody in the South Asian community? Is it certain kinds of business people? Yeah. Well, honestly, like when we had our town hall, I remember one quote from a business association who said that. You know, it has moved to from, if it will be me, now it is when will it be me?

And that kind of shows you the general scope of how people are feeling. But overall, it has been business owners. For example, especially in the trucking industry, we've seen that. We've seen a cafe that's been shot up three times. that's owned by a comedian in India as another example. A Bollywood Star's business shot up again. Staff still inside. No one injured. We have lawyers that are even being targeted now.

The Law Society of BC sending a letter warning all members, writing the Society is aware of recent incidents in which lawyers have been threatened with serious physical harm unless they provided substantial sums of money. We're understanding it as a South Asian community, issue from the pattern that we're seeing, from what law enforcement has been telling us, what we're observing on the ground. But people really feel that at the end of the day, they are Canadians. There are Canadians who are being targeted. That these are people who have come here

to Canada. They've built businesses. These are their neighbors that are feeling it. And that it stretches beyond just saying that this is an issue within the South Asian community, because the implications are much wider than that, too. And just for either of you, as it fair for me to say that not all of these people being targeted are connected to the Khalistani independence movement. Absolutely fair, yes. That would certainly be the case. I mean, I think that it's not only that a wide variety of people are being targeted. And then the other thing is when you do get an extortion demand, it's also not clear who it's really coming from. So let's say that you get a demand in the name of the Bishnoi gang.

Is it really a Bishnoy who's asking for money, or is it a copycat? Because it's It's widely assumed in the community that, you know, the Bishnois did all the work to create this kind of fearsome name. And now there are other opportunists who want to take advantage of that to get some easy money who are piggybacking on that, on that reputation by making their own extortion demands. But there's also a question when you get an extortion demand of, is it really about extorting money or is it something else? And this is something that I heard from the RCMP last year around the time they put out that statement that there were some extortion demands that were pitched ridiculously high. They're asking for sums of money that they know that they're not going to get. Now, in some cases, that will be negotiated down quite fast to an amount that the business owner can actually pay. But in other cases, the RCMP felt like these extortion demands were so high because the people doing the extortion were looking to move to retribution quickly.

They weren't actually looking to collect the money. They were looking to do the arson or shooting that would follow. And the extortion was perhaps just to throw people off their tracks to create fear, to create confusion. but it was really the violence that they were interested in. I guess I'd say something else, too, about this. You know, when he just mentioned the case where the extortion demand began with shots fired, and shots can kill people. You fire shots in a drive-by shooting.

You can hit somebody. I mean, if you look at extortion, that's really quite a violent form of extortion. I mean, you know, think about a city like Palermo, Sicily, right, which is notorious for its extortion by the mafia. And I remember there when Chinese merchants began opening up in Palermo. they didn't want to pay. And the Sicilian mafia went around their businesses and put super glue in blocks. You know, they're just looking to cause inconvenience, right? This is a kind of a misdemeanor type of extortion. And, you know, that was that, of course, it then might ramp up to a broken

window or something. But that's the Sicilian mafia, starting with super glue. They don't start with gunshots even before they make the demand. Just really terrifying stuff here. So I'll just, one very quick question I have. You know, We're talking about some 100 reports of extortion in the last year in the lower mainland of BC. And, like, Evan, has law enforcement given you a sense of just how much of that they think Indian government agents are involved in and how much of it is just part of, like, the gang, chaos, and violence? Well, they don't really know themselves what the breakdown is, except to say that I think they're pretty confident that there's both kinds going on. I mean, if you want to talk about a very brazen shooting, the one at the Swift radio station, for example, which occurred where they fired bullets into a studio where the chief of Surrey Police

had literally just been there giving an interview about the extortion problem. The shootings were directly into the recording studio. And if we had been live at that time, that is exact, that bullet would have gone right through me. We talk about freedom of speech, freedom of us. and yet there is a direct attack the same night as we raise an issue that is very disturbing for the community. You know, what's the point there? The point there was just, it seems to send a message of fear and intimidation and

some of these shootings seem to be just about that or they're about beefs like, I mean, an example, the AP Dillon shootings. There's very intense bullet sounds. Then I went to the kitchen window to overlook AP's home. and I saw the truck on fire. The truck said on fire. AP Dillon, it seems, was targeted partly because he had a music video

where he allowed the Indian actor Salman Khan to appear. And he's someone who the Bishnoy gang have a beef with. The man with alleged ties to the Bishnoi gang was sentenced to six years in prison for a shooting and arson attack at the Victoria area home of well-known Punjabi singer A.P. Dillon. There's also beefs with other gangs. We believe, for example, that the shooters who killed Hardy's signature may have also been involved in another shooting in Winnipeg, which appears to just be about gang rifles between the Bishnoy gang and another gang called the Mabija gang.

So there's always a bit of a, let's say often there are multiple possibilities when shots are fired about what's really going on. So beneath, these town halls that you and some of our colleagues held in B.C., can you tell me a little bit about what you heard from people, about how they're feeling right now? This town hall brought together community members that brought together officials, leaders from all levels of government, essentially. And the key things that I kind of took away are, A, the fear that we've heard, about how nervous people are that this is happening. The frustration when it comes to seeing charges and arrests, for example, for example, in Abbotsford, there have been no charges and arrests related to extortion.

In Surrey, seven men have been charged, three separate cases believed to be linked to extortion. And people constantly were demanding those answers as to, you know, what more can possibly be done and how fast can these results be expected. Another question that kind of came up was, again, with law enforcement. And the RCMP representative that was there that day said, you know, it was a bit of a backfoot situation. This took too long. As often happens when we get waves of a crime come in. We were initially on the back foot.

For sure we are. I'm here to tell you that's the truth. We're not anymore. You know, they assured everybody that this is a key priority. So that recently in BC, there has been a provincial task force that was launched by the RCMP. There are investigative teams in Surrey and Abbotsford who are focusing on this. We have the right resources in the task force. We're making great progress.

And I will say the efforts amongst the RCMP, Surrey Police Service, Abbotsford, Delta, Transit Police, and others are making great strides. But again, just people feeling let down. in a way because this is constantly going on, you know, week by week, we're constantly hearing about more cases that are happening. And what also happened is people are voicing their frustrations because we've understood that the Canadian Service's Border Agency has deported three people. They're investigating over 70 others regarding extortion-related incidents, but people are saying, well, why aren't their names being revealed? Why aren't we naming and shaming these people. So these were kind of some of the conversations that came out of that town hall

earlier in November. Evan, what do you make of some of those critiques that law enforcement isn't doing enough to protect people? What do you think of that? I mean, I'm sure you'll also speak to people in law enforcement. What do they say about it? Well, I mean, there's just no getting around the fact that extortion in Canada is dramatically up. I mean, you know, we see other offenses in the criminal code tend to rise or fall incrementally year over year, there's no doubt the problem is getting worse. To what extent would I blame that on the police? I mean, it's really hard to answer that question. They have made some arrests in some of the cases we've already discussed. The one thing I can say from having talked to them extensively during the

old Niger investigation is that they absolutely did, in the case of the RCMP take the issue of Indian foreign interference in Canada very, very seriously. And they took some steps, which we don't normally see the OSMP taking, for example, going public with that extraordinary statement last October, October, 2024. They were taking things fairly seriously, and for them, of course, the priority case was the nature assassination, a political assassination carried out in broad daylight. And they did successfully get four arrests on that case. So I would say that. Let's loop back now to where we began this conversation, which was the reproach mall with the Indian government,

this new negotiated trade agreement in the pipeline. And the people that you're talking to, Evan, how do they think this could affect what we've been talking about today? I mean, I think what I would have said until a week ago that I saw no change in the attitude of the Indian government. But the last week, I'm starting to think that perhaps we are seeing a change in the attitude of the Indian government. So it did appear that because Canada was transparently keen to get back to normal. And the question was, would India sort of pocket that and at the same time keep right on going with the kind of campaign of interference and violence that? it was accused of last year. The Canadian government has been keen to say, no, no, we're still

very focused on the security issues. We're not going to allow that to happen. We're going to advance with India, but we're keeping our eye firmly on the other ball, too. So I do think that the Indian government, both in the way that we've seen it behaving in South Africa, you know, the meetings that have occurred there, the positive way the Indians have described them, and also the reaction on this weekend, this past weekend, to the latest installment of the Sikh independence referendum, right, which is one of the things that really triggered the Indian government, and perhaps is the main reason why Hardeeb Singh-Niger was killed. You know, we had another installment of that referendum campaign this Sunday in Ottawa,

and while the Indian government has sort of fulminated about these events in the past, they had a really mild response to this one. I asked them, you know, what was their take on it? And they said, well, these are Canadian citizens voting in a Canadian event. You have no comment. Which is a change of tone. That's a change of tone. So it may be that the Indian government is also deciding that, you know, economics are genuinely more important than this Calistani issue and that this, it's caused us enough grief and embarrassment. Maybe we've been exaggerating that concern and maybe we should actually just let this all blow up. Can I just push back on this a little bit?

Is anybody making the argument that this is setting a pretty bad precedent? That it's sending the message that you can, I suppose, murder Canadians on Canadian soil, meddle violently in their affairs, and then there's no real consequences for that. There are certainly people in the sick community making that point all the time. Yes, I mean, there is a very big concern, in within the sick community, particularly those who are active in the Kalesi

cause, that they are going to be the sort of sacrificial lamb that India and Canada agree to, you know, to sort of sacrifice to get back to normal in their bigger trading and diplomatic relationship, that Canada will agree to turn a blind eye to what happened and therefore India will feel that it can continue to behave the same way. I think, you know, that India certainly is not going to apologize or acknowledge that it directed the Hardy's signature killing from the top levels. The most that even the Americans were able to get out of India was a sort of a rogue agent story, which both sides appeared to have agreed to believe publicly, which is that, yes, there is clear wiretap evidence and other evidence that made it impossible to deny the involvement of an agent of the research and analysis win, which is that. as India's overseas intelligence agents in the New York assassination plot, which is to kill the man who's the leader of the movement of which Harding Signature was the Canadian head.

India's had to concede that. They just had to concede that he was involved, but they said, well, he was acting on his own. The Americans who, like us, also have these larger interests with India, and theirs are even bigger because they include the Quad, the Alliance Against China, you know, really big geopolitical defense-related issues. They agreed to accept that explanation. that Canada, you know, would be lucky to get even that, because in the past, India has just ridiculed any suggestion that it was involved in the Nijer, in the Nijer events.

Okay. Benet, final word to you? Even in the town hall, I could definitely sense this, the, the push that many people had regarding their criticism of India. Again, Hardip Singh Nidjer's death came up. This was now started from November, 23, started from 18th. of June 23, when Hadith Singh Dijer was assassinated in Gurnanak Sek, Qudr Shah. And, you know, one man that I remember is Maninder Singh, the chair of the Sikh Federation of Canada. I arrived here early, about 5.15. I waited, came in as quickly as I could. After I asked this question, I will leave before anyone else in this crowd leaves.

And the reason for that is I have multiple duty to warns of imminent assassination by the federal government and federal agencies in this country. And he questioned, why is Canada, you know, improving trade relations with India? Mr. Modi come to the G7 in June and Kananaskas and being welcomed with the red carpet. These people aren't even a part of the G7. Why are we going out of our way to actually invite them here?

He mentioned how the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, they can't just be pointed as the one type of gang behind this. If it's not Bishnoi, it's going to be somebody else tomorrow and somebody else. This guy is sitting in an Indian prison. running an international organization, how does India not know what he's doing? There's no way that he's sitting in a maximum security prison running this operation without India somehow being involved.

And yet we're not willing to even say India's name in certain circumstances and forums. And this is part of the problem. So, you know, when Menendor Singh spoke, what he said, this was something that many people in the audience did clap for. And again, it shows that sentiment of frustration, the feeling that people have,

that this is a transnational issue, that they are also tying back to violence that's rooted in India. So how many more life's incidents or victims are needed before it's conceded as a Canada's problem? And we have to get to a point that if the members of this panel have ideas and solutions when it comes to a national problem, stop giving us regional band-aid solutions. Thank you.

Guys, thank you so much for this. This is great. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Penny. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Evan. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.