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.
“These criminal organizations have engaged in widespread violence, including targeted killings, extortions and kidnappings,” and “flooded communities around the country with massive quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine,” Essayli said.
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.
“Using contraband cellphones and other… devices smuggled into his jail cell, defendant Bishnoi personally directed political assassinations, murders, shootings, extortions, kidnappings, drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes,” the documents say.
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.
“We’re going to cause harm to you,” Bhatti allegedly said. “Your kids, your family, everyone. It doesn’t matter to me if I kill someone. That’s what I do.”
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.
Another member of the Bhagwanpuria gang, Gurdev Singh, 26, is alleged to have attempted to extort a family while he was being held in ICE custody, using smuggled communication devices to threaten to “put bullets in your kids.”
Bhagwanpuria himself “personally directed the transportation and distribution of large loads of cocaine within California from his jail in India,” prosecutors charge.
Federal prosecutors also charged British Columbia resident Ravinder Singh Dhanda, 57, with smuggling hundreds of pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine each week from the US into Canada.
Dhanda’s gang used semi trucks and farming trucks to move the drugs from Los Angeles, West Covina, Ontario, Fontana and Perris to the US-Canada border, court papers say.
Accused Dhanda drug trafficker Justin Guzman, of El Monte, was arrested Tuesday at the Metro station where he works a day job. Guzman is accused in a federal charging document of smuggling more than 150 pounds of cocaine for the gang.
Accused gang members were arrested in Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose and other California cities in Tuesday’s takedown, law enforcement officials said. Twenty-three search warrants were executed in the Sacramento area, and 19 were served in Los Angeles.
“They’re people who used LA as kind of the crossroads of their criminal enterprise, whether it’s drugs, extortion, murder, or other things,” said LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.
Authorities on Tuesday conducted at least 50 raids in the US, Canada and Europe. Other suspects were arrested in Indiana and Georgia, along with three in Canada and one in Spain.
As part of the investigation, law enforcement seized more than 2,200 pounds of cocaine and heroin, $40,000 cash and a dozen firearms.
Authorities are also hunting seven fugitives in the US, two in India and one in Europe.
