Last fall, Harsimran Singh was on his way to bring 15,000 fans to Stockton for an international tournament of India’s classic game of Kabaddi.
Then, suddenly, the athletes started to stop.
They seemed to be making excuses to avoid the world cup of sports. As president of the American Kabaddi Federation, Singh felt nervous as the cancellations piled up. He began to press for answers.
He learned from the athletes, and from the law enforcement, that someone was threatening the players to shape the outcome of the event. They received phone calls from the criminals, most of them imprisoned in Indian jails, telling them not to get involved, and warning of consequences if they disobeyed the orders.
“The players were very afraid, when they were called, they did not want to fight with the gangsters. They were not willing to play because they did not want to harm their safety and the safety of their families,” said Harsimran Singh.
Singh’s tournament threat was no fluke. It was, as he would understand, part of a much larger wave of international threats, fraud and violence against Sikh Indians and Punjabis throughout California.
The method is straightforward: a gang member calls the victim and demands money. If they refuse, the criminal network threatens or attacks their relatives, families, or businesses – either in the United States or India.
More than 250,000 Sikhs live in California, the largest number in the U.S. Like other members living abroad, they maintain strong ties to India, many traveling regularly to visit their families or ancestral homes.
Law enforcement agencies in California say that a combination of wealth, strong ties and cross-border crossings have made them attractive targets for criminal networks with roots in the north-western states of India – Punjab, Haryana, New Delhi and Rajasthan.
Indian police told CalMatters that these criminals often target “real estate developers, liquor contractors, transporters and local businessmen” – people with high incomes or property. “One of the main reasons is the large dispersion of the Indian population in California, which provides a certain degree of anonymity and social security,” said a spokesman for the organized crime task force in the Indian state of Haryana in a written statement.
The FBI Sacramento field office, began sounding the alarm in early May 2024, urging members of the Central Valley’s Indian community to report these types of shakedowns.
“In recent extortion attempts, individuals have demanded sums of money and threatened physical violence or death if not met,” the FBI said in a statement at the time.
At least two murders in California have been linked to criminal networks targeting people from Indian nations. Two suspects in the Lawrence Bishnoi gang – described by the FBI as India’s most wanted criminal organization – were killed in Stockton and Fresno, according to local law enforcement agencies.
San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said the crime pattern is not typical of a network with only domestic roots. “Most of them have an international type of connection to them, where it starts in India because threats are made to family members and businesses back there,” he said.
Withrow explained that the initial demands were deliberately modified to avoid provoking a police response. “Typically they start out with between $4,000 and $7,000 – they figure that’s a range that someone can pay and not contact the police,” Withrow said. “Victims’ families sometimes pay, figuring that one payment will protect their family and business in India and the United States.”
It rarely worked that way. “Most of the time, a few months later, the fraud team will come back and ask for more money,” Withrow said.
Withrow said his office has been receiving about two fraud-related cases a month for the past year or two. His office in July arrested eight suspected members of a gang led by Pavittar Preet Singh, in India who are facing charges related to firearms abuse, assault and murder.
Most wanted in India
At the heart of this criminal enterprise, Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang, commonly referred to as the Bishnoi gang, has members across India, the United States and Canada.
The leader of the Bishnoi gang, Lawrence Bishnoi, has been jailed in India, but federal investigators in recent criminal cases say he continued to direct his global network of extortion and targeted killings using secret messages, cross-border communications and a team of US-based partners to defraud victims in both countries.
Investigators believe that Lawrence Bishnoi has access to illegal cell phones and oversees the criminal activities of the Bishnoi gang despite the Indian authorities taking him into custody.
In December 2023, Lawrence Bishnoi personally contacted a crime victim by phone, according to the FBI, and then turned on his camera to confirm the victim’s identity. The victim took a screenshot, a rare piece of evidence linking Lawrence Bishnoi directly to the extortion threat.
The FBI found that members of the US-based Bishnoi gang and their associates often used WhatsApp and Signal to convey threats and demands to victims in India. “If the victims do not pay, members of the Bishnoi gang and their associates arrange for members in India to shoot at the victims, their associates, their residences and their businesses,” the agency said in the November charges filed against the alleged gang member.
In November 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Anmol Bishnoi – the younger brother of Lawrence Bishnoi – in Nebraska, according to the FBI.
Indian authorities say he played a major role in two of India’s most gruesome murders: the May 2022 murders of world-famous Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala in Punjab and Baba Saddique, a prominent politician and former state minister of Maharashtra.
Within weeks of Anmol’s arrest, Sunil Yadav, an Indian-origin and suspected member of the Bishnoi gang, was killed in Stockton. In Fresno, Banwari Godara – an alleged Bishnoi gang associate – was shot and killed near a truck repair yard on October 18.
The killing spree changed in January, when Indian authorities announced the arrest of four suspects suspected of involvement in two murders. According to Indian investigators, the suspects were members of Bishnoi’s rival gang. Investigators believe the suspects fled the United States after the murder. California law enforcement agencies have not announced any arrests or suspects in the killings.
Sacramento County police have linked these Indian-based gangs to 20 shootings in the past four years, according to Sheriff’s Detective Steve Hernandez.
Enforcement actions continued in 2025 with numerous arrests reported by the FBI and the California Highway Patrol. In April 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel approved the arrest by the FBI Sacramento of Harpeet Singh, whom Patel described as a terrorist suspected of carrying out attacks in Punjab, and linked to two international terrorist groups.
A Sikh businessman based in California told CalMatters that he received money wanted by a member of the Central Valley-based Bishnoi gang. The deceased has been receiving phone calls for two and a half months, saying that his name has been withheld because of the threats we are facing.
The gangster once demanded $1 million, he said.
“It has had a psychological impact on my life, it has stopped me, I can’t even move freely if I have to go to India,” he said. The suspect reported the threats to Fresno police and the FBI.
The threats followed the Canadian victim
One of the latest cases involves Jasmeet Singh, an Indian national who lived in the Stockton and Fresno areas when he allegedly made a series of threats to a victim who had moved to Canada from India, according to a December federal court filing.
The victim kept an Indian phone number after moving to Canada. Months later, Jasmeet Singh obtained that number to make a series of threats by phone and voicemail, and became enraged after learning the victim was cooperating with Indian law enforcement, the lawsuit said.
Jasmeet Singh.
(United States District Court for the Eastern District of California)
It is reported that Jasmeet Singh identified the victim’s car as a white Range Rover, indicating that it is capable of patrolling across international borders.
“You’re going to die in Canada. I’m not going to let you go to India,” Jasmeet Singh told the victim, according to the lawsuit.
“Go complain to whoever you want to complain to, go complain there. We will kill you there,” Jasmeet Singh said in a voice message sent that day.
Although Jasmeet Singh did not specifically name gang member Lawrence Bishnoi during those allegations, the FBI concluded that the nature and context of the threats — especially references to the victim’s cooperation with law enforcement — indicated Jasmeet Singh’s ties to the gang.
The investigation was initiated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who first raised the alarm about Jasmeet Singh’s behavior and shared information with their American counterparts, which led to an FBI investigation.
He was arrested and taken into federal custody in December and is awaiting trial. His next court date is in May. His attorney has not responded to CalMatters’ requests for comment.
Naindeep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a prominent Sikh advocacy group based in California, described organized crime groups as active in the state for a long time.
Many members of the Sikh community “choose to remain silent for fear of reprisals against themselves, their bodies, their businesses, and their loved ones in the United States or India,” said Naindeep Singh.
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office received this underreporting. “We believe there are more crimes than we have records,” said a spokesperson for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.
Naindeep Singh and other members of the community contacted Fresno police and state agents to report the scam.
Security in Kabbadi tournament
Back in Stockton, Harsimran Singh is sitting in his business office, explaining to a visitor that his world cup event has gone ahead.
The sport, which is part tag and part wrestling, has in recent years been hit by a series of murders in India involving players and various organized crime groups, just as its popularity has increased in California.
Harsimran Singh, president of the American Kabaddi Federation, in his office at a truck yard in Stockton.
(Larry Valenzuela/CalMatters)
Harsimran Singh believes that the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria group is targeting his competition. Its leader, Jaggu Bhagwanpura, is in an Indian prison.
“The law enforcement also wanted us to be vigilant, we must hire a lot of security guards and make sure that everything goes well,” he said.
The police and FBI agents came to assist the private security guards, even though Harsimran Singh never filed a complaint with them.
“We don’t want to get involved in any of these activities that could harm our property or our lives. We would like to avoid that,” said Harsimran Singh.
The guard caught.
Gagandeep Singh writes for CalMatters.
