
By Mata Press Service
International students from India are being pulled into violent extortion networks just as Canada sharply cuts the flow of new foreign students over concerns about fraud, compliance and public safety.
A new special bulletin from FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence agency, says criminal groups targeting South Asian business owners are recruiting or relying on young male Indian nationals in Canada on study permits to act as money mules, financial intermediaries, enforcers or “foot soldiers.”
The warning lands as Canada’s international student system is already under intense scrutiny.
New international student arrivals fell to 2,135 in February 2026, down 48 per cent from the same month last year and 75 per cent from February 2024, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data. Ottawa is also moving to cut new study permits to 155,000 in 2026, 150,000 in 2027 and 150,000 in 2028, after earlier plans had projected 305,900 permits in both 2026 and 2027.
FINTRAC says extortion targeting Canada’s South Asian diaspora has evolved from sporadic threats into a sustained campaign of coercion, intimidation and violence, with major concentrations in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Victims are often small and medium-sized business owners in retail, transportation, construction, real estate and hospitality.
The pattern is direct and brutal.
A business owner receives an anonymous call or encrypted message demanding money, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. If the victim refuses, the threats can escalate to gunfire at a home or storefront. In some cases, properties are set on fire.
In Surrey, one of Canada’s largest South Asian population centres, the scale of the problem has become difficult to ignore. The city has recorded 15 extortion-related shootings this year, 87 extortion reports, 46 victims, 25 repeat victims and two extortion-related arson cases.
FINTRAC says the extortion activity appears to be driven mainly by loose criminal networks that mix local actors with individuals claiming links to overseas organized crime groups.
The agency names the Bishnoi Gang and the Bambiha Gang among the groups that appear to be involved, while warning that copycat criminals may be using those names to frighten victims into paying.
The Bishnoi Gang, led by Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, has been designated by Canada as a listed terrorist entity. FINTRAC says the group has a presence in Canada and is active in areas with large diaspora communities. Its criminal activity reportedly includes fraud, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, extortion and targeted killings.
But one of the bulletin’s most troubling findings is how these networks appear to exploit weak points in Canada’s international student system.
FINTRAC says suspicious transaction reports show individuals implicated in violent extortion activity processing email money transfers, cheques and cash deposits in volumes and values that do not match their reported status, including as international students. It says criminal elements use nominees and money mules to layer proceeds of crime and hide where the money came from and where it is going.
The agency tells banks, credit unions, money services businesses and casinos to watch for customers who are typically between 17 and 28 years old, possess an Indian passport and identified as international students when opening accounts, often at colleges rather than universities. FINTRAC also flags the use of aliases, pseudonyms or rapper stage names.
Other warning signs include unexplained cash deposits at several branches or ATMs, large volumes of email money transfers that do not match a student’s income or employment, and transactions involving India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and possibly Portugal or Kenya. FINTRAC also points to transactions involving Haryana or Punjab in India.
The warning comes after Canada’s international student program surged for years, then hit a wall.
A report submitted to Parliament by Auditor General Karen Hogan found that Indians made up 51.6 per cent of incoming international students in 2023, falling to 33.6 per cent in 2024 and 8.1 per cent by September 2025. The study said permit applications rose 121 per cent from about 426,000 in 2019 to about 943,000 in 2023, as Canada marketed education as a pathway to permanent residency.
The Auditor General also found that IRCC identified more than 153,000 students as potentially non-compliant with study permit conditions between 2023 and 2024, but had funding to investigate only 2,000 cases each year, according to the provided material.
In three investigations, IRCC identified 800 study permits issued between 2018 and 2023 where applicants had allegedly used fraudulent documents or misrepresented information.
Those findings do not mean international students as a group are linked to crime. Most come to Canada to study, work and build a future.
But FINTRAC’s bulletin points to a narrower and more dangerous problem: financially vulnerable young newcomers can be recruited, pressured or used by organized crime networks that need local bank accounts, local drivers, local rentals and local hands to carry out threats.
The financial trail is central to the scheme.
FINTRAC says victims often face immediate demands for lump-sum payments through email transfers, cheques, cryptocurrency or cash deliveries arranged under duress. While demands may begin in the hundreds of thousands or millions, actual payments identified by FINTRAC are often much lower, ranging from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. That suggests some victims may be negotiating smaller payments or payment plans under fear.
Some victims have reportedly liquidated assets or moved capital abroad because they fear for their safety. FINTRAC says that response is understandable, but it can disrupt local economic activity and make investigative tracing harder.
FINTRAC has launched Operation TAPEX, short for Timely Analysis of Proceeds from Extortion, to track proceeds generated by criminals extorting South Asian diaspora communities. It is asking reporting entities to include the term #TAPEX in suspicious transaction reports linked to these cases.