LOS ANGELES : The FBI has obtained a federal arrest warrant for Nitish Kaushal, charging him with conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for his alleged role in a transnational organized crime group linked to Punjab, India, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Kaushal is accused of carrying out acts of violence, including kidnappings and assaults, on behalf of the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria Organized Crime Group, a syndicate that originated in Punjab and has been operating in the Central District of California and elsewhere, prosecutors said.
The charge stems from a grand jury indictment returned on or around June 25, 2026, in Los Angeles federal court, part of a broader U.S. law enforcement effort known as Operation Hard Ball, which was announced around July 7-8.
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The operation, which involved cooperation among U.S., Canadian and European authorities as well as Indian law enforcement, targeted three India-based transnational crime syndicates operating in the United States and abroad.
Authorities said the operation resulted in charges against 37 defendants across three separate indictments, with approximately 24 arrests made so far.
ALLEGED CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
According to the indictment, the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria group operated as a racketeering enterprise engaged in murder-for-hire, targeted killings, kidnappings, assaults and extortion used to enforce compliance among members, rivals and victims.
The group is also accused of trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin – including bulk shipments moved by truck from Southern California to other parts of the United States and into Canada – as well as trafficking in firearms, money laundering and other offenses.
Court documents cite a July 2024 incident in Manteca, California, in which a man believed to have stolen a drug shipment was allegedly kidnapped and assaulted before being taken to Fresno and held for a $50,000 ransom. The victim was released, prosecutors said, only after the group’s leader gave the order. Kaushal is alleged to have been involved in that incident, along with associates identified in court filings as Amritpal Singh Bal and Amarbir Singh, who transported the victim.
THE ALLEGED LEADER
Prosecutors have identified the group’s leader as Jagdeep Singh, roughly 38, who goes by the alias Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and is from Bhagwanpur village in Gurdaspur, Punjab. Singh is currently held in India’s Silchar Central Jail in Assam under preventive detention laws targeting narcotics offenders, and is accused of directing the group’s operations from behind bars using smuggled cellphones.
Indian authorities have linked Singh to roughly 128 criminal cases, including murder, extortion, arms trafficking and narcotics offenses, according to the release.
He has also been named as an associate and later rival of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in connection with the 2022 murder of Indian singer Sidhu Moosewala. Both Singh and Bishnoi are said to run their respective criminal networks from Indian prisons while maintaining operations that stretch into North America and Europe.
Investigators allege the Bhagwanpuria syndicate has more than 1,000 members and associates worldwide, including more than 100 in the United States. The group is also accused of using corrupt officials in India – including a Punjab police officer separately charged in connection with an alleged $400,000 extortion scheme involving fabricated murder cases – to target rivals.
