From Bombay to Britain - The Expanding Reach of Indian Organised Crime
The Asian Crime Century briefing 149
In December last year the governments of India and the UK signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Criminal Records Sharing to facilitate real-time exchange of criminal records, fingerprints, and intelligence between law enforcement agencies of both nations. The government to government level agreement followed an MOU signed in July between the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) to prevent corruption, serious fraud and organised crime (The Indian Express, 4 February 2026). The agreements signify significant cooperation between law enforcement agencies in India and the UK, which indicates the volume and seriousness of criminal issues of mutual concern that the two nations have to combat.
The extent of Indian organised crime links to the UK has been intermittently reported, but an analysis of major cases in the past several years gives an indication of the types of crime that are prevalent as well as the seriousness of the crimes involved. It would be wrong to assume that the issue only involves Indian organised crime impacting the UK, and analysis shows the impact of UK based criminals on India. It is noteworthy how successful the NCA has been in the past decade in taking action against organised crime groups originating from or connected to India, which also show the value of the national level MOUs.
Organised crime hiding in plain sight?
According to the 2021 UK Census, almost 1.9 million people in the UK are recorded as having Indian ethnicity, which amounts to 3.1% of the total population. People of Indian heritage are diverse, with over 797,000 identifying as Hindu, over 386,000 identifying as Sikh as well as others of varied ethnic origin within India. India is also the most common country of birth outside the UK, amounting to 920,000 people (Office for National Statistics, 2021). The large Indian diaspora in the UK is an attractive and convenient cover for Indian criminals who have fled from law enforcement in their home country.
For example, Jatinder Singh, also known as Jindi, from Punjab, fled to the UK and allegedly continues to maintain links to criminal activities in India through his associates. Joban Malhi, also from Punjab, is an associate of the Landa-Rinda gang (a criminal group associated with Babbar Khalsa International) and suspected to be hiding in the UK. Mohabat Singh and Nishan Singh Jourian, both from Punjab, are associates of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang suspected to be hiding in the UK. Both are alleged to have been involved in murder, extortion, and possession of illegal arms and continue to coordinate Bishnoi Gang activities from the UK (The Tribune, 23 January 2026).
Indian organised crime groups both operate in the UK with business links to their home country, and target victims in the UK as well as India. Drug trafficking remains a major organised crime business line, with multiple examples of Indian groups active in the UK.
In 2023, 16 members of a West London organised crime gang led by Charan Singh were found guilty in court and sentenced to imprisonment. The gang were believed to have smuggled around £70 million cash out of the UK to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which was the proceeds of the sale of narcotics as well as illegal immigration. Charan Singh and multiple gang members are of Indian origin and resident in Hounslow in the UK (The Tribune, 16 September 2023).
In 2019, members of a major narcotics manufacturing and trafficking group were convicted in the UK of offences related to their activities that involved an Indian pharmaceutical company used as a front for the supply of around 42 tonnes of anabolic steroids into the UK. British Indian Gurjaipal Dhillon acted as a fixer for the group by arranging unlicensed shipments of drugs from India into Europe, for which he was convicted of found guilty of conspiring to import a class C drug and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The NCA believed that the group was “the most prolific of its kind ever uncovered, probably the biggest global players in the illicit anabolic steroid market.” (NCA, 19 November 2019). The gang did not only involve Indian nationals, and was led by a Mumbai based Danish national, but is an illustration of a pharmaceutical product supplied from India and facilitated by UK based criminals of India heritage.
Fraud is a fast growing business line for most organised crime groups because of the relatively lower risk than drug trafficking and other traditional crime types, as well as the ease of establishing online based infrastructure.
In July last year, the Indian CBI raided a fraud call-centre in Noida, in Uttar Pradesh, and arrested two suspects following a joint investigation with the UK NCA, the US FBI and Microsoft. The online fraud group had deceived over 100 victims in the UK, who are believed to have lost over £390,000. The fraud involved the group posing as employees of Microsoft, then contacting victims and offering to repair their computers after causing a pop-up that suggested their device was infected or had been hacked, although no attack had taken place. Enforcement action against the group in India was only possible because of the cooperation between agencies from India, the UK and USA as well as Microsoft, which requires complex and time consuming work (NCA, 11 July 2025).
People smuggling is also a growth area for Indian and many other organised crime groups. In December 2025, the NCA arrested an Indian man in Birmingham for advertising people smuggling services on social media. Although the NCA did not specify the ethnic type of the potential victims being targeted, UK Government data last year showed that 2,715 Indian nationals were detained for breaches of immigration law, which has increased by108% from the prior year (which is possibly due to an increase in enforcement action).
The Indian organised crime and political nexus
The Indian organised crime diaspora also has a political nexus, often involving either elements of Sikh separatist groups from the Punjab who advocate a separate state of Khalistan or involved with efforts by Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan to destabilise India.
The most prominent Sikh group involved in violence fighting for an independent Sikh homeland in India, to be called ‘Khalistan’, has historically been the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI). The BKI has its origin dating in the 1920s with groups fighting against British rule in India but took its current form in 1978. The first unit of the BKI was reportedly founded in Canada in 1981, and the group is believed to also have active support in the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland and Pakistan. The BKI was at the forefront of the insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s, when the group also became an international terrorist organisation utilising the Sikh diaspora. The BKI is listed as a terrorist entity by the governments of Canada, the UK, and the US.
The Indian authorities alleged in 2022 that the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and BKI are a terrorism-organised crime nexus that involves coordinating smuggling arms, ammunition and explosives across borders, particularly from Pakistan into Punjab, to support terrorist activities. The Canadian Government has also publicly stated that the Lawrence Bishnoi gang is a terrorist entity (Asian Crime Century briefing 142, 14 December 2025). Lawrence Bishnoi gang members are mostly Sikh and originate from Punjab, such as Mohabat Singh and Nishan Singh who are reported to be hiding in the UK.
Pakistan provides the other political nexus with Indian organised crime. There are multiple documented cases of alleged ISI supported Indian organised crime groups. In November 2025, the police in Delhi arrested members of a gang who were smuggling weapons from Pakistan into India to supply to organised crime groups. The Indian police seized ten automatic pistols and ammunition and discovered that the gang had been smuggling the weapons across the border using drones. The police reported that the gang members were supported by the ISI (The Hindu, 22 November 2025).
In August 2025, Indian police arrested Saleem Ahmed, also known as ‘Pistol’, who they alleged was planning to set up a facility to manufacture counterfeit versions of Turkish Zigana and Chinese Star pistols, which were to be supplied to organised crime gangs including the Lawrence Bishnoi Gang. According to Indian intelligence sources, Saleem Ahmed maintained direct links with the ISI agents (The Times of India, 9 September 2025).
These cases illustrate how parts of the Indian organised crime landscape are an intersection of crime, politics, and state-linked subversion. Groups such as BKI demonstrate how the Indian diaspora can provide operational depth and political cover. In addition there is a persistent pattern of alleged facilitation of Indian organised crime groups by the Pakistan ISI through arms trafficking, logistics, and cross-border coordination.
The involvement of Indian criminals in political issues, such as supporting Khalistan or assisting Pakistan, illustrates how ideological extremism and profit-driven organised crime can converge. For countries hosting large Indian and Sikh diasporas, such as the UK, this nexus poses a complex security challenge as targeting Indian organised crime groups also requires cognisance of the possible involvement of targets in terrorism and foreign interference, which requires law enforcement responses that integrate criminal justice, counter-terrorism, and intelligence cooperation rather than treating these threats in isolation.
Indian organised crime groups are one of many ethnic types that challenge law enforcement in the UK, also including Albanian, Chinese, Pakistani, Russian, Turkish-Cypriot, and Vietnamese. Indian organised crime groups are not necessarily the most serious threat, but the scale of the Indian diaspora in the UK provides opportunities for cover, also a pool of potential victims, and a nexus with political issues such as Khalistan as well as Pakistan that complicate investigations and intelligence gathering. The MOUs between the Indian and UK governments to exchange intelligence and for law enforcement agencies to assist each other are timely and a positive move.