Weeks after CBC News identified two Indian nationals deported from Canada for serious criminality, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has identified the pair as proof of expanded efforts to disrupt extortion networks.

According to Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) records obtained by CBC News, Arshdeep Singh and Sukhnaaz Singh Sandhu were known to each other — and to the alleged “prime conspirator” behind a series of extortion-linked shootings at a Surrey, B.C., café.

Both men moved between provinces, wracking up run-ins with police at every stop.

‘No place in our country’

Singh, who came to Canada on a student visa in August 2022, was suspected in an arson in Ontario, a shooting in Edmonton, extortion cases in Surrey and auto theft and insurance fraud in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

And Sandhu, identified as a former leader in a Surrey-based criminal gang of international students called The Ruffians, was accused of engaging in a “high-risk lifestyle” involving “firearms, fraud, stolen vehicles, flight from police and drive-by shooting incidents.”

Although it’s unclear exactly how they knew each other, a review of Singh’s phone allegedly found links between him and Sandhu, including a video of them alongside Bandhu Maan Singh Sekhon, a man accused of orchestrating shootings at a Surrey café owned by a Bollywood star.

In a statement Wednesday promoting a crackdown on suspects involved in serious criminality, the CBSA cited Singh and Sandhu’s deportation as an illustration of the agency’s “ongoing efforts to identify and remove individuals linked to extortion and organized criminal schemes in Canada.”

“Protecting the safety and well‑being of Canadians requires constant vigilance in the face of evolving criminal threats,” federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said in the statement accompanied by pictures of Singh and Sandhu.

“Extortion and organized crime have no place in our country.”

Caught on camera

Singh and Sandhu are among 35 people removed from Canada as part of recent attempts to disrupt extortion networks. As of last week, the CBSA said it had opened 372 immigration investigations and issued 70 removal orders.

CBC News came across Singh and Sandhu’s cases while reporting on the immigration system’s response to the extortion crisis, attending immigration detention and admissibility hearings — which are nominally open to the public.

Singh and Sandhu were living in Edmonton at the time of their arrests, but both men had previously come under the watch of police in Ontario and British Columbia.

According to IRB transcripts, Singh was caught on camera at the scene of an arson involving Molotov cocktails hurled at a commercial business in Brant County, Ont., last August; he was accused of directing assailants to film the attack.

He was allegedly linked through shell casings to shootings in Edmonton and Surrey and pulled over last October in a Surrey traffic stop in a vehicle with three men who were arrested the next day in relation to an extortion-related shooting.

Singh’s phone allegedly held a treasure trove of videos and messages linking him to an auto theft and vehicle fraud network and more than a dozen other extortion suspects — including Sandhu.

At his admissibility hearing, Singh said he had grown depressed in immigration custody. He was never criminally charged with extortion, but claimed he was admitting to the allegations made against him in order to speed up the deportation process.

A failed claim of persecution

By contrast, Sandhu fought deportation, claiming he risked persecution if returned to India because of his support for a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create an independent Sikh state called Khalistan in northern India.

While he didn’t make a refugee claim, Sandhu’s bid to avoid removal — which was unsuccessful — provides insight into the grounds on which a number of extortion suspects currently targeted for deportation by the CBSA have likely based their claims for asylum.

CBC News attended another admissibility hearing for someone accused of serious criminality earlier this month, only to see the proceedings taken out of the public domain because of a last-minute refugee claim.

A pre-removal risk assessment found that “high-profile Sikh leaders of separatist movement organizations have been detained and, in various instances, killed” but said there was no evidence suggesting Sandhu was a “high ranking member of the Khalistan movement.”

Sandhu came to Canada in December 2016 when he was 17 years old, becoming a permanent resident two years later as a dependent of his mother.

According to court documents, he attended school from January 2017 to October 2018, but discontinued his studies, working in an Amazon warehouse, as a pizza delivery driver and as a personal trainer.

But authorities, including CBSA officers and police, claimed Sandhu’s record of police interactions suggested he was a member of The Ruffians, a group “involved in drug trafficking and other violent crimes” in the Surrey area.

They cited his chest tattoo of an AK-47 — the chosen logo of the gang — and pointed to social media posts as proof Sandhu was a gangster.

‘No regard’ for release conditions

Canadian immigration officials flagged Sandhu for criminality in 2020, but it took nearly six years to remove him from Canada.

In a memo written last November, a CBSA officer described the catch-and-release cycle that saw Sandhu move in and out of custody as he awaited the outcome of the long process that ultimately resulted in his deportation to India last month.

“Subject has had over $45,000 in cash and performance bonds forfeited on previous release conditions, many violations while on the (electronic monitoring) program for curfew, battery charging and location violations,” the officer wrote.

“Subject has no regard for the extensive list of conditions he has been on. Therefore there is no alternatives to detention that currently exist that would mitigate the danger to the public.”

Like Singh, Sandhu moved from B.C. to Ontario and finally to Edmonton, where he was accused last September of “fraud and uttering threats report involving a vehicle sale in which the victim paid for a vehicle and it was never received. The victim then received threatening phone calls.”

Sandhu was charged with uttering threats to cause bodily harm or death in October 2025, and later that same month his white Nissan Rogue was identified “for being a vehicle involved in a shooting event.”

In court documents, Singh said he had “no home, no shelter and no immediate family capable of supporting me in India.”

“I will face homelessness, family separation and severe psychological harm,” Sandhu concluded in what amounted to a final, unsuccessful plea to authorities for one last, last chance.

“I make this affidavit in support of my motion to stay my removal and for no other or improper purpose.”