A Canadian deportation hearing heard on Thursday that the Lawrence Bishnoi gang sent a letter to police in Abbotsford, British Columbia, in August 2025 warning it had 1,000 members ready to carry out shootings across Canada. The disclosure came as officers described the letter as part of an extortion crisis that has hit businesses, especially in South Asian communities.

Constable Kevin St Louis told the Immigration and Refugee Board that the letter laid out what he called the gang’s criminal organisation. He said it described “upwards of 1,000 individuals” willing to carry out shootings and framed protection money as “taxes,” adding that the message made clear the group was looking for money through extortion.

The gang, which Canada designated a terrorist entity in 2025, is based in northern India but is said to operate in the US, UK, Australia and the UAE. Authorities allege Lawrence Bishnoi has run the organisation from jail in India since 2015 through associates and encrypted communications, even as it is accused of extortion, contract killings, shootings, drug and arms trafficking and intimidation of business owners and public figures.

The claims land in a country where law enforcement says organised crime has increasingly mixed with shootings and extortion rackets aimed at members of the South Asian community. Canadian police have said people of Indian origin or Indian citizens make up about 3.38 million people, or 8.3 per cent of the population, making the threat especially sensitive for communities already dealing with intimidation.

There is, however, a gap at the centre of the case. Police said detectives are still trying to establish where the letter came from and what should be made of its contents. Sergeant Paul Walker said the details were shared with law enforcement partners fighting the extortion crisis, but he added that he was not in a position to discuss the investigative steps that followed.

That leaves the letter both alarming and unfinished: a threat described in court, tied to a gang with a long record of violence, but still under examination by investigators who have not said who wrote it or how the claims were verified. For now, the hearing has turned a private warning into a public test of how far the Bishnoi network reaches and how quickly police can prove it.