LOS ANGELES, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A federal racketeering indictment alleges an international organized crime group brought a kidnapping victim to a Fresno apartment during a violent extortion scheme tied to a stolen cocaine shipment.<\/p>\n
United States Attorney Bill Essayli was in Los Angeles on Tuesday to announce criminal charges and arrests of members of three India-based organized criminal syndicates as a result of \u201cOperation Hard Ball\u201d.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s law enforcement action \u2013 \u201cOperation Hard Ball\u201d \u2013 is the result of a years-long federal investigation into Indian crime syndicates that engage in racketeering, targeted killings, shootings, extortion, the trafficking of bulk quantities of narcotics across international borders, and other crimes around the world whose impact is especially felt in the Indian diaspora. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors say members of the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria Organized Crime Group kidnapped and assaulted the victim in Manteca in July 2024 before transporting him to Fresno, where they demanded $50,000. <\/p>\n
The victim was later released on orders from the group’s alleged leader.<\/p>\n
The 44-page indictment accuses the organization of operating a transnational criminal enterprise involved in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, firearms trafficking and other crimes across the U.S., Canada and India.<\/p>\n
The indictment does not identify the location of the Fresno apartment, explain why Fresno was chosen, or indicate whether law enforcement later searched the property.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors also allege the group used California as part of a large-scale drug trafficking network, moving cocaine and methamphetamine from Southern California through the state and toward Canada and the eastern U.S. <\/p>\n
Operation Hard Ball resulted in the arrest of 24 defendants \u2013 11 of them in California \u2013 charged with a litany of criminal acts, including the assassination in Canada in 2023 of a prominent Indian political and religious figure, the Justice Department said.<\/p>\n
The indictment further alleges members sold firearms in Fontana, Santa Clarita and Bakersfield and coordinated shipments of nearly 100 kilograms of cocaine and approximately one kilogram of heroin from Southern California to Indiana using semi-trucks.<\/p>\n
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Law enforcement is still looking for 10 fugitives \u2013 seven in the United States, two in India, and one in Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A federal racketeering indictment alleges an international organized crime group brought a kidnapping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-389818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}