When U.S. prosecutors unsealed three sweeping indictments last week charging 37 people tied to India-based crime syndicates, they also demonstrated how Canada’s immigration system has become a recruitment pipeline for transnational organized crime in recent years.
The indictments, the culmination of a two-year investigation dubbed Operation Hard Ball, including 24 arrests across Canada, the U.S. and Europe—allege the Bishnoi gang recruits vulnerable young people in India, including minors, and dispatches them to Canada and the U.S. on student and temporary work visas. Once on North American soil, they carry out extortion, drug trafficking, and violence. CBC News reported that nearly all of the accused Bishnoi foot soldiers in Canada came from Punjab on study permits and temporary work permits, often obtained with fraudulent information. They also noted that the gang had tried to intimidate the Abbotsford, B.C., police last summer claiming they had more than 1,000 foot soldiers in Canada ready to carry out extortions.
The Bishnoi gang is an India-based transnational crime network, led by jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, that Canada designated a terrorist entity in September 2025 over its extortion and violence campaign targeting South Asian diaspora communities. The Bishnoi leader, alongside associate Goldy Brar, were two of the individuals indicted last week, and stand accused of ordering the 2023 assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.
‘Not a new problem’
According to Kelly Sundberg, a professor and criminologist at Mount Royal University who spent more than 15 years with what is today the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), this has been an ongoing problem for well over a decade.
“Simply put, this is not a new problem, and it is not limited to the Bishnoi gang,” Sundberg told The Hub. “Bishnoi is only the latest example of how a decade-and-a-half of neglect has allowed foreign nationals to enter and criminally exploit Canada.”
Authorities have often cited recruitment of individuals coming from the temporary immigration streams of work and study visas.
“Every individual that we’ve identified during this investigation is a temporary foreign worker or on a student visa and relatively new to Canada,” said Const. Kevin St. Louis, an Edmonton Police Service officer and member of Project Al-Extortion, when testifying before the Immigration and Refugee Board earlier this year on the rise of extortion in Canada by the Bishnoi.
A screening system built on trust
Sundberg told The Hub the vetting of those entering the country is “a broken, and in places effectively non-existent, security screening process.” Canada still relies heavily on easily-forged documents, self-declared information and basic criminal-record checks, he explained. “Someone with no conviction and no watch-list entry [not showing up in databases with Canada’s international security partners] can be approved even where there are real concerns about their associates, finances, travel history, or links to organized crime.”
Those checks are thinner than many assume. International students and most foreign workers are not required to provide police background checks, and then-immigration minister Marc Miller acknowledged in 2024 that Ottawa does not routinely require them from temporary residents. That leaves Canada, critics such as Senator Percy Downe (who previously sat as a member of the Liberal Party) have argued, with little ability to detect international students’ criminal histories abroad.
Instead, the federal government’s tightening of immigration in the past couple of years has focused on financial thresholds for international students, fraud verification of acceptance letters, and an intake cap, not official criminality screening.
The vast majority of these immigrants are law-abiding citizens who came to Canada for better opportunity, safety, and prosperity. However, critics argue proper precautions were not taken to avoid bad actors exploiting a wider-open door to entering Canada.
Since 2024 when the government started curtailing its elevated annual immigration levels, Ottawa’s clampdown on temporary migration has fallen hardest on Indians wanting to work and study abroad in Canada. From its height of the federal government issuing just under 278,000 study visas issued to Indians in 2023, the government still issued and renewed 23,150 study visas to Indian students in the first four months of 2026, and a total of 188,465 study visas to Indians in 2025 (36.5 percent of all study visas issued that year).
In the temporary immigration stream, an additional over 249,000 worker visas were issued to Indians, and another 576,419 Indians were admitted to Canada under the government’s visitor program.
Vulnerable after arrival
Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, sees the larger vulnerability emerging upon arrival.
“My sense is that the problem lies less in screening and more in the circumstances that young Indian/South Asian migrants find themselves in once they arrive in Canada,” Wark told The Hub. “They may have been over-sold about their prospects by unscrupulous immigration ‘consultants’ … or generally find themselves adrift. So youth become vulnerable targets for recruitment and exploitation by organized crime groups.”
Sundberg agrees the post-arrival gap is the most glaring failure.
“We’re far better at issuing permits than at checking whether people are actually attending school, working where they’re supposed to, meeting the conditions of their permit, or becoming involved in serious criminal activity,” he said, noting roughly 400 inland enforcement officers cover the entire country. “Low [law] enforcement [officer] numbers don’t necessarily mean a low threat—they may just mean a low chance of getting caught.”
An enforcement system underwater
The numbers bear that out. This Monday, Ottawa-based news outlet Blacklock’s Reporter revealed a Privy Council briefing note showing CBSA deported more than 18,000 inadmissible people last fiscal year, the most in a decade.
However, that’s still thousands short of its annual 20,000-removal target for both last and this fiscal year. The agency told the Commons public safety committee in December it was tracking 33,000 foreign fugitives in Canada, all with warrants for detention and deportation, including 726 people—about 2.2 percent—associated with serious crimes outside of avoiding their deportation orders. CBSA vice-president Aaron McCrorie likened the backlog to bailing a bathtub while “the bathtub is filling up.”
The Bishnoi gang is not the only main concern when it comes to growing organized transnational crime syndicates. The RCMP-led Criminal Intelligence Service Canada counted more than 4,000 organized crime groups operating across the country in its 2024 public report, up from more than 3,000 in 2022. Its latest assessment counts eight groups as national high-level threats.
That inventory sits atop a far larger undocumented population. Last year, a federal Finance Department briefing estimated up to 500,000 people live in Canada without status. Miller pegged it at 300,000 to 600,000—admitting nobody really knows—and some analysts suggest it could approach one million as permits expire and those under removal orders simply stay.
What Ottawa should do next
Critics believe Operation Hard Ball is a response to an immigration system that is still failing. Sundberg wants Ottawa to rebuild enforcement capacity first, then stand up a permanent national unit on transnational organized crime and immigration abuse, combining CBSA, IRCC, RCMP, CSIS, FINTRAC and provincial and municipal police. He’d also like to see re-screening after arrival and accountability from schools, employers and consultants for their responsibilities in bringing people into the country.
Wark’s priorities are engagement with diaspora communities—a lesson he says Canada learned long ago with counter-terrorism efforts. This would mean monitoring student attendance, regulating immigration consultancies, and modernizing the RCMP’s Canadian Police Information Centre so data actually moves between agencies. He adds that public education is essential as well for “ensuring that fear doesn’t turn into xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.”
Sundberg believes the current situation was inevitable given how the current system has been managed by the federal government.
“Canada expanded migration without expanding enforcement. We built a much larger system, but not a stronger one—and organized crime has taken advantage of that.”
Fault Lines examines the pressures pulling Canadian society apart and the principles that can hold it together. We look beyond headlines to understand how institutions, communities, and democratic norms are fraying. Our mission is to show how better choices can repair what is broken.
Recent indictments linked to the Bishnoi gang have exposed significant flaws in Canada’s immigration system, which has become a conduit for organized crime. The gang recruits vulnerable individuals from India, often using fraudulent student and work visas to facilitate their operations in Canada and the U.S. Experts highlight a broken screening process that fails to adequately vet newcomers, allowing criminal elements to exploit immigration pathways. With rising immigration levels and insufficient enforcement, the situation has led to increased organized crime activity, prompting calls for systemic reforms to address these vulnerabilities and improve security measures.
How does Canada's immigration system contribute to organized crime recruitment?
What are the implications of the rising number of organized crime groups in Canada?
What steps can Canada take to improve its immigration screening process?
Comments (1)
It’s a case of political priorities. The unstated policy is the rest of the world FIRST, Canada and Canadians LAST.
Here’s an example: in order to get a work permit from India, such as used by this Bishnoi gang, the waiting period is 9 weeks.
If you’re a Canadian citizen and applying to get your citizenship certificate, the waiting period is 19 months and there are 99,500 people ahead of you. Same Ministry, different priorities.
Receipts: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/check-processing-times.html
Facts Only
* Three sweeping indictments were unsealed charging 37 people tied to India-based crime syndicates.
* The indictments stem from an investigation called Operation Hard Ball.
* The gang is alleged to recruit vulnerable young people in India, including minors, and dispatch them to Canada and the U.S. on student and temporary work visas.
* Nearly all accused Bishnoi foot soldiers in Canada reportedly came from Punjab with study or work permits obtained with fraudulent information.
* The Bishnoi gang is an India-based transnational crime network led by jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
* Canada designated the Bishnoi gang a terrorist entity in September 2025 due to extortion and violence targeting South Asian diaspora communities.
* The Bishnoi leader and associate Goldy Brar were among those indicted.
* A professor and criminologist noted this is an ongoing problem spanning over a decade.
* Police officers indicated that identified individuals were temporary foreign workers or on student visas when testifying before the Immigration and Refugee Board.
* CBSA deported more than 18,000 inadmissible people in the last fiscal year.
* The RCMP-led Criminal Intelligence Service Canada tracked over 4,000 organized crime groups in 2024.
* Federal estimates suggest up to 500,000 people live in Canada without status.
Executive Summary
U.S. prosecutors unsealed indictments linking individuals to India-based crime syndicates, alleging the recruitment of vulnerable young people, including minors, from India to Canada and the U.S. through student and temporary work visas. The investigation, Operation Hard Ball, resulted in 24 arrests across Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Accused individuals are alleged to engage in extortion, drug trafficking, and violence on North American soil. Evidence indicates that many accused members of the Bishnoi gang originated from Punjab, obtaining permits through fraudulent means. Experts note that this issue is not new, tracing back over a decade of neglect regarding foreign nationals entering Canada.
The immigration system is cited as a pipeline for organized crime, with authorities often citing recruitment via temporary work and study visas. Critics argue that the security screening process lacks effectiveness, relying on easily-forged documents and minimal background checks for temporary residents. While many immigrants are law-abiding, there is a perceived failure in preventing bad actors from exploiting immigration pathways. Furthermore, increased immigration levels have placed strain on enforcement capacity, with data showing significant deportation activity but also large backlogs in tracking foreign fugitives.
Full Take
The narrative reveals a structural failure where immigration policy has prioritized volume over security, creating an exploitable vulnerability for transnational organized crime. The core tension lies between the federal government's process of expanding migration without simultaneously strengthening enforcement capacity, which allows organized crime to exploit temporary statuses. The system is characterized by systemic gaps: weak screening processes that tolerate easily-forged documents and a post-arrival vacuum where individuals are vulnerable targets rather than being actively monitored for compliance or criminal involvement.
The issue extends beyond specific gangs to the broader management of immigration streams and enforcement logistics. The argument suggests that focusing solely on external security measures, like increased deportations, misses the critical failure in internal accountability—the lack of mandated vetting for those entering through temporary streams and the insufficient data-sharing between agencies. The focus shifts from managing a lawful migration process to policing the consequences of that migration, highlighting how deferred action creates opportunities for criminal exploitation among vulnerable migrants.
The call for reform points toward restructuring governance rather than simply addressing symptoms. The proposed solution—combining agencies and implementing re-screening and accountability mechanisms—suggests a necessary paradigm shift: recognizing that immigration management must integrate security oversight from entry through integration. Furthermore, the observation that the system is managed based on differing priorities (e.g., wait times for permits versus citizenship applications) suggests that systemic injustice is embedded in the administrative structure itself, perpetuating cycles of neglect and vulnerability.
Bridge Questions: If enforcement capacity were prioritized above immigration volume, how would the flow of temporary visas change? What mechanisms can effectively compel accountability from educational institutions and employers regarding student/worker status? How can the principle of proactive security be integrated into all aspects of immigration administration to prevent the exploitation of legitimate pathways?