Indo-Canadian organized crime

Punjabi-Canadian organized crime
Founding location British Columbia
Years active 1990s - present
Territory Canada (mainly in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario but to some extent Alberta), California, New Jersey, New York, Punjab, India
Criminal activities Drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, robbery, contract killing, fraud, money laundering, chop shop, counterfeiting, extortion, illegal gambling, murder and prostitution
Allies Triads, Vietnamese crime groups, Outlaw motorcycle clubs, Mexican cartels
Rivals Somali Gangs

Punjabi-Canadian organized crime is a term denoted to organized crime groups based in Canada that are predominantly of Punjabi origin. Punjabi-Canadian gangs are the third major homegrown organized crime problems in Canada, next to the Outlaw motorcycle clubs and Native American criminal organizations. Annual police report ranked them third in terms of sophistication and strength in British Columbia, only behind the aforementioned biker gangs and Asian criminal organizations such as the Triads and Vietnamese drug clans.[1]

History

Punjabi-Canadian street gangs were in the beginning mostly made to protect the community from the racism and discrimination that Punjabi people had suffered from local white population. Mainly involved in petty street crimes, older and more calculated criminals from the community quickly saw opportunities to make profit of the situation. Often using clan-based connections in their homeland Punjab, organized criminals from the were able to build relatively criminal empires making use of young street gangs. The first major Punjabi-Canadian crime boss was Bindy Johal, although many and more powerful crime characters followed.[1] Unfortunately Punjabi-Canadian gang violence is still on a high, recorded that from 2006 to 2014, 34 South Asians (dissaportianetly Punjabi) had been murdered by gang violence making up for 21.3% of gang deaths in B.C.[2]

Gang violence has started to heat up again as of 2014 in the Punjabi community were violence in West Abbotsford between the Chahil and Dhaliwal crime groups has led to the death of Harwindip Singh Baringh,[3] in the Vancouver South Slope were two Punjabi groups have caused chaos which might be linked to the situation in West Abbotsford, and as of 2015 15 out of 30 shootings in Surrey and Delta from March 9 to May 9 have been from a drug turf war between the Punjabi and Somali drug groups which has led to the death of Arun Singh Bains as well as much of the Somali gang leadership.[4] Due to this the police have arrested 5 Indo-Canadian males Arman Dhatt, Pardip Brar, Rajvir Sunner, Chandanjot Gill, and Munroop Hayer to stop the gang violence happening in both cities.[5][6]

Activities

The main trade of the Punjabi-Canadian crime groups is the trafficking of heroin. Punjabi-Canadian crime bosses use their family connections in Punjab to bring in the drug. Punjabi-Canadian crime groups widened the reach of their activities and delved criminal areas such as extortion, kidnapping, prostitution, money laundering and above all contract killing.[7][8] Organized gangs from the community have infiltrated the local transportation business, setting up connections with Mexican drug cartels and using truck drivers to smuggle cocaine and hashish from Mexico into the United States and Canada.[9]

References

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