On December 8, 2025, the British Columbia (B.C.) Extortion Task Force announced charges against Avtar Singh for unlawfully discharging a firearm. The charges relate to a November 12, 2025, incident in which a residence on 32nd Avenue in Surrey was shot at.
On November 8, 2025, another shooting incident occurred at a home near the King George Boulevard in Surrey, where a man working on the property was injured. On November 12, the same home was attacked again – no casualties were reported.
On November 7, 2025, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) deported three foreign nationals – its first removals under a new task force – who were tied to a network targeting Punjabi businesses.
On October 7, 2025, a woman was shot and critically injured after her home was targeted in Surrey.
On August 18, 2025, some shots were fired at a Surrey car wash, where the owner reported $20,000 worth of equipment stolen.
On July 10, 2025, Kap’s Café in Surrey – owned by Bollywood actor and comedian Kapil Sharma – was shot at just one week after opening. The café was targeted again on August 7 and for a third time on October 16. Incidents were claimed by the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and its affiliates, including Goldy Dhillon and Kulveer Sidhu.
On June 18, 2025, owners of Nijjar Trucking Ltd. reported shots fired at their Surrey business.
On June 7, 2025, the residence of Satish Kumar was shot at. Days later, during a public meeting, he reported that his business had been attacked multiple times over three weeks.
Indeed, in November 2025 alone, the Surrey Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) logged 95 extortion reports and 45 related shootings. These back-to-back attacks on one victim highlighted the brazen persistence of perpetrators. CBSA stated that it has investigated 78 foreign nationals in connection with extortion networks. Additionally, more than 100 incidents had been reported, primarily in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley in Canada. The extortion crisis, which first surfaced prominently in late 2023, escalated sharply in 2024 and 2025. The wave traces back to the July 29, 2023, shooting at the Vancouver-area home of Punjabi singer Amritpal Singh (AP) Dhillon, marked as the first extortion-based violent incident in Canada. The incident was linked to extortion threats from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which was designated a terrorist organisation by Canadian authorities on September 29, 2025. Similar incidents soon emerged across the Greater Toronto Area in Canada, targeting South Asian businesses with threats and property damage. Since the shooting at AP Dhillon’s, several extortion shooting incidents have been reported in Canada. Indeed, on November 14, 2025, the Law Society of British Columbia (BC) issued an urgent advisory to its members, warning of recent multiple incidents in which lawyers were approached with demands for large sums of money, with explicit threats to their physical safety if they failed to comply. Meanwhile, addressing the issue, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal commented on January 4, 2025, that “People getting extortion calls, especially Indian nationals, is a matter of serious concern.”
Criminals or gangsters, however, often use encrypted social media platforms such as Instagram and have been issuing threats demanding protection money in cryptocurrency. When victims refuse, offenders escalate to arson, vandalism, and drive-by shootings. The crisis disproportionately affects the Punjabi diaspora. Many victims are Punjabi-origin business owners in industries such as real estate, trucking, and hospitality. Perpetrators are often of Punjabi origin as well, linked to transnational networks in Punjab and Haryana. According to police and media reports from 2023-2025 incidents, rival or affiliated groups such as those led by or associated with Lawrence Bishnoi Gang, Arsh Dalla (a Canada-based designated terrorist with alleged ties to extortion rackets and rival factions) and Goldy Brar (a key Bishnoi gang associate operating from Canada, often credited with orchestrating threats and violence). Some incidents have also involved or links to Davinder Bambiha gang, a Bishnoi rival, as well as local Indo-Canadian networks exploiting gang names for extortion, including the Brothers Keepers, which has been linked to extortion cases in Alberta.
Extortion proceeds are frequently funneled back into fueling further violence and expanding criminal operations, as well as escalating intense gang rivalries. These rivalries manifest in cycles of retaliatory attacks, struggles for territorial dominance, and transnational payback targeting perceived enemies within the Punjabi diaspora in Canada as well as across the world, as well as in the home country. A federal government response is urgently needed in Canada, to meet this escalating threat. As Indian MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal has noted, the core issue is the “space afforded to extremists, terrorists and anti-India elements” in Canada – a space that now directly jeopardizes the Indian diaspora. These incidents can no longer be dismissed as routine organised crime. In their scale, structure and psychological impact on the Punjabi community, they resemble a sustained campaign of terror.
