US and Canadian authorities say they have “dismantled” the leadership of a notorious Indian criminal group, charging dozens of operatives who have “inflicted pain and cruelty on people, victims around the globe”, including a high-profile murder in Canada that strained diplomatic relations between Canada and India.

At a Tuesday press conference, members of the FBI and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said as part of Operation Hard Ball – a multiyear federal investigation into murder-for-hire plots, shootings, extortion and drug trafficking – they had charged 37 people, some of whom were already in custody. Authorities are still searching for seven fugitives in the US, two in India and one in Europe.

The highest profile indictment was of Lawrence Bishnoi, the imprisoned head of an Indian criminal gang, who was charged with orchestrating the assassination of a well-known Sikh campaigner from behind the bars of a Delhi prison cell.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was fatally shot outside a temple in Canada where he served as president in 2023. Police said they had also charged his childhood friend, Satinderjeet Singh, for his role in the killing. Singh, who also goes by the name Goldy Brar, is now a fugitive in the US.

Bishnoi is alleged to have directed the operation using smuggled mobile phones and provided a co-conspirator with photos of Nijjar and his known addresses in order to facilitate the assassination.

The brazen daylight shooting of Nijjar sparked tensions between the Canadian and Indian governments, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said that there were “credible allegations” that the Indian government was involved in Nijjar’s death.

Nijjar was a key figure in the movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan. The outspoken activist, who was born in India and was a Canadian citizen, had been called a terrorist by Indian authorities, who had offered a reward for information leading to his arrest.

Sikh diaspora activism has been a source of tension between India and Canada for years. Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside India, and India has repeatedly accused it of tolerating “terrorists and extremists.”

For its part, Canada recently designated the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity.

Moninder Singh, a friend of Nijjar and another activist who has faced repeated death threats, said in an interview that the charges sent a strong message about the importance of public safety. But he said he fears that shifting narratives about the role India’s government has played have emboldened India to crush dissent anywhere in the world.

“The omission of state-level actors like India [from investigation by Canada] suggests that bilateral trade deals and geopolitical partnerships are being prioritised over the uniform protection of Canadian citizens from foreign interference and transnational repression,” he said.

He added that he received four warnings that he described as “imminent assassination by India and its proxies” from Canadian police, the most recent including his wife and two children. “Omitting or erasing India from this equation is giving them almost a green light to continue to hunt Sikh activists advocating for self-determination in the form of Khalistan,” he said.

India’s envoy to Ottawa, Dinesh Patnaik, has said India never conducted foreign interference in Canada, but questions over India’s role in the 2023 assassination have persisted after reports that an official in the country’s Vancouver consulate helped supply information on Nijjar. Canadian police believe the consular employee was also an intelligence officer with India’s external intelligence agency. In June, Canada’s spy agency said Nijjar’s murder signalled a “significant escalation in India’s repression efforts”, reflecting a broader, transnational campaign by Delhi to threaten dissidents.

Both India and Canada previously expelled diplomats from the other country amid the international dispute.

In May 2025, four Indian nationals were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in relation to Nijjar’s killing. The case is now before the British Columbia supreme court.

RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme called the charges a “a big moment for the RCMP and for public safety in Canada, the United States and around the world” adding law enforcement was “meeting criminals where they operate, targeting the leadership structures of these criminal groups, and ending their ability to terrorize and extort people.”

Duheme said Bishnoi and his co-conspirators were “some of the most cruel and wide-reaching criminals” who engaged in murder, kidnapping, extortion and arson – all of which were fuelled by a sprawling drug trafficking network. As part of the operation, police seized roughly 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and a dozen firearms.

According to the indictment, Bishnoi also claimed responsibility for a separate shooting that occurred at the Vancouver home of a prominent Indian actor and singer, warning in Punjabi in a Facebook post that “no one can save you from us.”

On Wednesday, Canada’s justice minister, Sean Fraser, told reporters he hoped the Operation Hard Ball arrests marked an inflection point for communities in Canada grappling with a spike in shootings and violent extortions.

“The magnitude of today’s news cannot be overstated,” he said.

Speaking alongside Fraser, Brenda Locke, the mayor of Surrey, British Columbia, said her community has “felt like the city has been under siege for some time.” Local police say there have been 131 reports of extortion in 2026, 20 related shots fired and two arsons.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who US authorities say was target of a murder plot, said the charges “cannot be viewed in isolation” and represented a broader approach to targeting Sikh dissidents and exposed the “lethal … transnational assassination apparatus” operated by the Indian government. In his case, the US department of justice have charged an Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav. The US has tried to extradite Yadav, but officials in Dehli says they cannot locate him.

“The Indian BJP government deployed two distinct operational methods to achieve the same state-sanctioned objective – the elimination of leaders of the Khalistan Referendum movement,” said Pannun. “Different tactics, but the same masterminds.”

Authorities also named two other criminal organisations that were swept up for similar charges over the course of the two-year investigation. The transnational organisations have members in countries ranging from the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Members of the group are also accused of stealing large quantities of drugs from other criminal organisations operating in California, and then selling the illicit merchandise across the country and into Canada.

The indictments say that some defendants leveraged relationships with corrupt local authorities in India to persecute rivals or those who were believed to be cooperating with law enforcement. At least one defendant is accused of organising criminal activities while detained at an immigration and customs enforcement facility, authorities said on Tuesday, though it is not clear how he was able to communicate without being detected.