Just days after a public safety forum took place in Surrey, B.C., to address crime targeting South Asian business owners, Premier David Eby said he wants a gang based in India declared a terrorist organization in Canada.
Police have said members of the South Asian community are being extorted of cash under threat of death or violence and the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has been linked to some of those threats.
There have been 10 extortion reports in Surrey alone over the past six months, according to local police. Some of those investigations “go beyond borders,” Chief Const. Norm Lipinski said.
Eby said it’s an issue of huge concern in B.C., but also in Alberta and Ontario, where gangs from India are operating.
He said Tuesday that he would write to Prime Minister Mark Carney to ask that the gang be given the terrorist designation “to enable police to be able to use the necessary tools to investigate.”
The federal government took similar action against seven criminal organizations, including cartels and street gangs involved in fentanyl trafficking. Among them are the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, two of Mexico’s largest and most powerful organized crime groups.
Community members gathered in Surrey last weekend to talk about extortion and public safety.
Surrey businessman Satish Kumar said he has received threats demanding $2 million, and businesses he’s associated with have been targets of gunfire three times in recent weeks.
A Surrey business owner who says he’s been the target of extortion-related shootings hosted a public safety forum this weekend. Representatives from all levels of government attended to hear concerns from the public. As Sohrab Sandhu reports, the town hall comes after a surge in reported extortion threats targeting the South Asian community.
Canadian police sources have told CBC News that the Bishnoi gang is one of a number of criminal enterprises in northern India that have spread into North America in recent years. The group’s founder, 32-year-old Lawrence Bishnoi, has been in Indian prisons since 2014.
Indian media outlets have described extortion as one of the the gang’s biggest sources of income, both at home and abroad.
