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If Indian mobster Lawrence Bishnoi didn’t exist, a crime novelist or Hollywood screenwriter would have to invent him.
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With a splash of the mythical, a la Kaser Soze from the movie The Usual Suspects, the gangster and his criminal apparatus carry a sinister aura of invincibility.
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As if to prove the point, bodies have piled up from the Indian subcontinent to Vancouver. But now, Bishnoi and his cohort of thugs have been declared a terrorist organization in Canada.
On Monday, the feds said the Bishnoi gang uses “murder, shootings and arson” to extort and intimidate diaspora communities.” Already, the gang boss is the prime suspect in the targeted hit on Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2024 in a Surrey parking lot.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said the new designation allows officials to seize assets and cash within Canada.
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But one of the world’s preeminent authorities on multinational organized crime said asset seizure should be an everyday tool for cops.
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“Criminal organizations are subversive by their nature,” Queens University criminology professor Antonio Nicasso told The Toronto Sun. “Asset seizure should be employed regardless of politics.
“Taking the money out of crime is the only thing that ever works. The terror designation will do little, or nothing.”
Bishnoi himself is an underworld enigma. The 32-year-old arch-criminal hails from a tiny village in Punjab and morphed into a political fixer at university, with the lines between legality soon blurring. In the violent underworld of the subcontinent, Bishnoi is considered the boss of bosses.
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In addition to the Nijjar rubout, the Bishnoi criminal cohort has also been linked to the 2022 murders of Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala and the Mumbai-based politician Baba Siddique.
From his jail cell in India, Bishnoi continues to rule over his empire of woe.
The terror designation comes at a time when relations between Canada and India are beginning to thaw. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of playing a role in the Nijjar hit, which was denied.
But there have always been suspicions that Trudeau’s accusations were more accurately fuelled by the Punjabi diaspora and the Liberal Party’s electoral needs.
Nicasso said that organized crime groups have “distinct objectives” and “different goals.”
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“Around the world, these groups share similar methods of financially thriving,” he said. “But it is essential not to confuse terrorism and organized crime. Yes, the lines are sometimes blurred, but they are very different.”
The famed Mafia expert isn’t so sure that Canada has made the case that the Bishnoi gang are, in fact, terrorists.
“What’s the rationale for this action? In many ways, this is doing the wrong thing. The right thing is taking the money and profit out of crime,” Nicasso said, adding Canada has only made the war on organized crime “more complex” with more “grey areas.”
Nicasso said the move to designate Lawrence Bishnoi and his acolytes as a terrorist organization only underscores how little Canadian politicians actually understand organized crime.
“Organized crime is really misunderstood. There is the element of organized crime to make money and to accrue power,” Nicasso said.
“There will be no impact at all; this doesn’t hit these criminals financially. Target their assets. It’s the only thing proven to combat these syndicates. I don’t understand the government’s rationale.”
Neither do we.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun
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