How Indian crime syndicates went global

On the afternoon of February 1, 2020, a Haryana Police convoy escorting gangster Sandeep alias Kala Jathedi was intercepted near Faridabad by armed men in multiple SUVs. In the gunfire that followed, Assistant Sub-Inspector Jitender Singh was injured and Jathedi escaped. The attackers allegedly hijacked another vehicle before fleeing.

The operation lasted only a few minutes but revealed a level of planning that suggested organised crime in north India had changed shape. Here was a network capable of mobilising armed men across state borders, arranging logistics with military-like precision and disappearing before reinforcements arrived.

Police across Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab launched a manhunt; Jathedi was arrested by the Delhi Police special cell in July 2021. By then, investigators understood they were no longer dealing with isolated gangs fighting over local turf. Instead, they encountered an interconnected ecosystem of criminal syndicates, whose reach extended well beyond India’s borders. These decentralised criminal groups adopted migration, encrypted communication, informal financial systems and overseas safe havens, enabling them to survive even when key leaders were jailed or killed.

Now, that assessment appears to have found an echo thousands of kilometres away. The US Department of Justice recently indicted jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his Canada-based associate Goldy Brar over the June 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia. The indictment, part of the multinational Operation Hard Ball, goes beyond a single murder. It describes an India-linked organised crime enterprise operating across India, Canada and the US through extortion, contract killings, narcotics trafficking and money laundering. For the first time, western law enforcement agencies have described an Indian criminal syndicate as a transnational organised crime organisation rather than merely a collection of fugitives.

Jathedi is not named in the American indictment, nor has any US agency alleged that he was part of the criminal enterprise described in the charges. But his rise coincides with the evolution of organised crime in north India into the decentralised ecosystem that investigators say eventually enabled networks such as the Bishnoi-Brar syndicate to operate across continents. Born in Sonipat’s Jathedi village, Jathedi first got involved in robbery and extortion before allegedly building a network spanning Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh. Unlike other gang leaders, he relied not on fixed turf, but on associates and contract shooters, and financiers and logistics providers who could be activated as needed.

By the 2010s, rival gangs increasingly collaborated: shooters hired across gang lines, weapons sourced from common suppliers, a killing planned in one state and financed from another. A senior Haryana police officer explains the change: “Over the last decade, they have become service providers in a criminal marketplace where logistics, shooters, funding, forged documents and overseas safe havens can be shared depending on the requirement of a particular operation. Earlier, arresting the gang leader would often weaken the organisation. Today, the leadership is only one part of the structure. Communication happens through encrypted applications, trusted intermediaries and handlers operating from abroad. Even when one person is arrested, the network continues to function because the infrastructure survives.”

It was in this landscape that Bishnoi emerged as the most influential gangster of his generation, allegedly directing an expanding network from prison, while Brar handled extortion, finance and logistics. The changing threat perception also altered the investigative response. Cases once treated as conventional organised crime increasingly drew the attention of central agencies such as the NIA. Investigators began examining alleged overlaps between criminal syndicates, narcotics trafficking, terror financing and extremist organisations, particularly when criminal infrastructure appeared to intersect with broader national security concerns.

For instance, according to the NIA, organised crime networks have developed links with Khalistani elements, driven by operational convenience. The syndicates gain access to overseas infrastructure, while extremist groups benefit from criminal logistics, financing channels and access to experienced shooters. Though the precise nature of these relationships remains under investigation, security agencies increasingly view them as part of a broader ecosystem rather than isolated associations.

Indian investigators have, in several cases, alleged operational contacts between individuals associated with the Jathedi network and members or associates of the Bishnoi-Brar syndicate. In September 2022, the NIA searched premises linked to Bishnoi, Brar, Jathedi and others as part of a crackdown on an alleged “terror-gangster-drug smuggler nexus”; six months later it charge-sheeted all three in the same investigation.

Jathedi’s lawyer Rohit Dalal disputes any suggestion that his client is part of the Bishnoi-Brar syndicate. “There was a time when Kala Jathedi and Goldy Brar knew each other because they operated in neighbouring criminal circles, but the association ended years ago,” he said. “Once police agencies began probing those alleged links, Kala distanced himself.” Pointing out that Jathedi was “not named in the American indictment or accused of being part of the transnational syndicate”, he asserted that criminal cases must be decided on evidence, not perception.

For Indian agencies, the arc from the Faridabad jailbreak to the FBI’s crackdown is prompting a rethink of their approach. Organised crime investigations increasingly involve cooperation between state police forces, the NIA, the ED and international law enforcement partners. This change underlines the new reality: criminal syndicates that once emerged from villages in Haryana and Punjab have evolved into international enterprises, and dismantling them now depends less on arresting individual leaders than on unpicking the ecosystem—financial, digital and cross-border—that keeps them running.