The role of confidential informants and undercover agents was crucial in the investigations that began in 2023 and led to the arrests announced Tuesday of 24 individuals linked to the Bishnoi, Bhagwanpuria and Dhandara organized crime groups, according to three separate indictments filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
One indictment showed that the early investigation, which eventually led to widespread arrests by U.S. law enforcement in an operation known as “Hard Ball,” concerned Ravinder Singh Dhanda, a Canada-based drug trafficker who transported large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to other drug trafficking organizations in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
On July 10, 2023, Dhanda contacted an individual he believed to be a drug courier coordinator and requested the drug courier’s number as well as other information to ensure the delivery of cocaine to an individual in Los Angeles. However, the person Dhanda contacted was a confidential informant working with US law enforcement, referred to in the indictment as CI-1. Dhanda passed the information provided to him by CI-1 to another representative of a drug trafficking organization. Just one week later, CI-1 was able to meet with Dhanda and one of his associates at a park in Blaine, Washington, to discuss the smuggling of quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine across the US-Canada border.
Thereafter, CI-1 became a regular contact for Dhanda’s drug organization, helping facilitate several cocaine and methamphetamine deliveries in August and October 2023. Dhanda even asked CI-1 to verify drug shipments his organization received. The relationship between this informant and the Dhanda gang continued, with physical encounters in November 2024 and January 2025. Canadian police later arrested Dhanda.
Even as law enforcement agencies built the case against the Danda organization, they were using a similar tactic to infiltrate the Punjab-based Bhagwanpuria gang, which was also involved in drug trafficking, according to another indictment. On June 17, 2024, gang members sold five kilograms of cocaine to someone they believed was a criminal associate. However, this person was a confidential informant, again referred to as CI-1, for law enforcement. It is not clear whether this is the same person who was in contact with the Danda drug trafficking group. The gang made $45,000 from the CI-1 for the sale.
Just one year later, in July 2025, gang members offered to sell CI-1 weapons, including AK-47 rifles and grenades. The sale was completed on September 4 in a California parking lot with CI-1 purchasing pistols and ammunition for a total price of $2,000. Just a few months later, in September 2025, CI-1 purchased semi-automatic rifles and ammunition from members of the Bhagwanpuria gang. The informant steadily strengthened this relationship by purchasing thousands of dollars worth of weapons in October and December 2025 from the gang. Things escalated in February this year, when the gang sought to transport what they believed was a real 20-kilogram load of cocaine received from CC-1 from the United States to Canada. However, the load was fake and was later seized by law enforcement on February 23. The indictment against members of the Bhagwanpuria group – their leader is in an Indian prison – reveals that CI-1 received letters from members of the group accusing him of placing tracking devices in the shipment.
The US government also used an undercover official – called UC-1 in the third indictment – to build its case against the Bishnoi gang, headed by Lawrence Bishnoi, who is also imprisoned in an Indian prison.
On January 11, 2025, a Bishnoi gang member, Sukhraj Singh Kang, spoke to someone who the gang believed was owed between $100,000 and $200,000 in debt, but who was actually a confidential informant, again identified as CI-1. The indictment said Kang agreed to help extort a debtor for a fee of $16,000. Members of Bishnoi’s gang then contacted a person they believed was in debt to CI-1 but was in fact an undercover law enforcement officer, referred to as UC-1 in the indictment. In subsequent conversations throughout 2025, members of Bishnoi’s gang contacted UC-1 and threatened to kill him if he did not pay the $200,000 he owed. Through this process, CI-1 was also introduced to the Bishnoi gang members who were also involved in the extortion case.
Members of the Bishnoi gang, who are now facing charges in US courts, continued to make incriminating threats to UC-1 until 2025 after the undercover official made extortion payments that were less than the agreed upon amount.
Based on the evidence collected from these investigations, US law enforcement presented its case to grand juries. On 23 June, the indictment against the Dhanda gang was returned, followed by an indictment against the Bhagwanpuria gang on 25 June, and finally against the Bishnoi gang on 1 July. Then it’s time for Hardball.
