A sprawling global web of gangsters targeted in a massive federal takedown used California as its cash register to rake in millions of dollars through extortion schemes, contract killings, and drug and gun trafficking, authorities revealed.
Local and federal officials on Tuesday arrested 11 accused members of transnational, India-based gangs and their affiliates in the Golden State as part of a case dubbed “Operation Hard Ball.”
Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, described the gangs as the most powerful you’ve never heard of, allegedly reaping millions of dollars in illegal profits from drug deals, extortion, weapons sales and theft.
{snip}
Court documents in the case exposed the grip the India-based organized crime syndicates allegedly have on California, even with their bosses operating from jail cells thousands of miles away.
The feared Bishnoi gang founded by Lawrence Bishnoi, who remains locked in an Indian prison, used Whatsapp to direct the movements of hundreds of pounds of drugs across California and extort victims from LA and Thousand Oaks, court documents show.
{snip}
The gang is accused of stealing about 1,150 pounds of cocaine from rival drug dealing outfits in the greater LA area between March 2024 and July 2025.
Bishnoi allegedly used his California underlings to do other dirty work in the state, authorities said.
One Bishnoi lieutenant, Rajan Bhatti, is accused of using terrifying threats in an attempt to extort $200,000 from an undercover federal officer posing as a wealthy expat living in LA, court papers reveal.
{snip}
Members of another India-based crime outfit — the Bhagwanpuria gang, led by imprisoned Indian mastermind Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38 — are accused of ruthlessly exploiting their connections to extort victims, federal officials said.
Bhagwanpuria gang member Gurlal Singh, 22, of Stockton, Calif., allegedly conspired with a corrupt cop in India’s Punjab state to falsely accuse their victims of murder and extort them over the pending case.
{snip}
The post Murderous Indian Terror Gangs Used California as a Cash Register While Trafficking Guns and Drugs: Feds appeared first on American Renaissance.
American RenaissanceRead More
T1
