OTTAWA — Conservatives are accusing the Liberal government of allowing organized crime to exploit Canada’s international student program after a classified border agency report linked study permits to the expansion of India’s Bishnoi gang.The December 2025 Canada Border Services Agency assessment, obtained by Global News and made public through court proceedings, warned of the gang’s “growing operational presence in Canada” and “demonstrated use of Canada’s immigration programs for criminal purposes.”“Investigations increasingly identify Indian foreign nationals on study permits and work permits as participants in these organized criminal activities,” the CBSA’s Intelligence and Investigations Directorate wrote.The document, titled The Bishnoi Gang: An Emerging Threat in Canada, was circulated to help immigration officers respond to the gang’s activities, including extortion and shootings targeting South Asian communities.Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner, justice critic Arpan Khanna and public safety critic Frank Caputo said Wednesday the findings were a result of inadequate screening and oversight under successive Liberal governments.“Canadians are fed up with crime and disorder on our streets that was entirely preventable had the Liberals done basic due diligence that both halted criminals before they entered our country and deported criminals found within Canada,” they said in a joint statement..The findings follow a recent interview in which The Western Standard questioned India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh K. Patnaik, about the Bishnoi gang’s activities and fraud involving Canada’s international student and visa systems..The CBSA report said crimes attributed to Indian study-permit holders increased by 8,800% between 2016 and 2024, while ranking India as the leading source country for foreign students charged with crimes.Between 2019 and 2023, about 4,000 Indian citizens who entered Canada on study permits were charged with a combined 17,929 offences, according to the assessment.Of those charges, 4,920 were classified as serious or connected to organized crime. The report said 97% of that category involved violent offences.The number rose sharply in 2024, when 13,040 charges were laid against 2,418 Indian citizens holding study permits.Those figures refer to charges, not convictions.The 2,418 people charged represented slightly more than one per cent of the 188,125 Indian students in Canada that year, a point not included in the CBSA assessment but noted by Global News.The report said the statistics likely understated the extent of criminal activity because many offences go undetected or unreported.The Bishnoi gang’s alleged Canadian lieutenant, Goldy Brar, entered the country in 2017, ostensibly to study at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., according to the assessment.The report said it was unknown whether Brar ever attended classes. He allegedly instead helped establish the gang’s Canadian operations and later filed a refugee claim, which was abandoned after he failed to appear at a 2022 hearing.Brar and gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi were charged by U.S. authorities in July with ordering the 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. The allegations have not been tested in court..The CBSA assessment said police investigations into a wave of extortion cases repeatedly encountered suspects who had entered Canada on student or work permits.Suspected gang members have also appeared at Immigration and Refugee Board deportation hearings in recent months over shootings targeting homes and businesses in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.The Conservatives said the findings demonstrated a failure to conduct sufficient criminal and security screening.“A porous oversight that we have once again confirmed welcomes criminals into Canada,” they said.They called for tougher criminal screening, penalties for fraudulent immigration applications, changes to the definition of serious criminality and greater public reporting on outstanding deportations and warrants.The party also wants courts barred from treating an offender’s immigration status as a mitigating factor during sentencing.Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not directly answer questions from Global News about whether the student program had contributed to the gang’s establishment in Canada.The department said the international student program had shrunk by 83% over the past two years and that Indian citizens now accounted for about one-quarter of study visas, down from 41%.The federal government designated the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity in September 2025.
