Surrey Gangster Faces $11M Forfeiture as BC Invokes US Racketeering Law in India-Linked Crime Case

British Columbia's civil forfeiture office has launched a landmark claim to seize more than $11 million in Lower Mainland real estate from Garinder Singh Deo, a Surrey-based gangster charged in the United States with facilitating an India-based transnational crime syndicate. The move uses US racketeering law as the foundation for a Canadian civil forfeiture proceeding, marking a significant evolution in cross-border enforcement strategy. Separately, the BC Conservative leader's directive to MLAs to use the term ‘Indian’ for First Nations peoples has stirred layered debate in a province where South Asian communities have long used the same word to describe themselves.

BC Seizes $11M in Property from Alleged India-Linked Crime Figure in Landmark Forfeiture Claim

British Columbia's civil forfeiture director has moved to claim more than $11 million in Vancouver-area real estate belonging to Garinder Singh Deo, described by investigators as a longtime Lower Mainland gangster now facing US federal charges. According to reporting by Sam Cooper at The Bureau, Deo is charged in the United States with facilitating an India-based transnational crime syndicate and is alleged to have links to the Wolfpack, a criminal organization with documented roots in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. What makes this case noteworthy beyond the dollar figure is the method: BC authorities are invoking US racketeering statutes as the legal basis for the civil forfeiture claim, a legally significant manoeuvre that could set a precedent for how Canadian provinces pursue proceeds of transnational crime organized outside their jurisdiction. The timing of property transfers adds another dimension to the case. Before the US indictment was unsealed, Deo transferred Surrey property assets to a sister and brother-in-law for one dollar ‘and natural love and affection,’ a phrase that now appears in forfeiture filings as evidence of alleged asset-shielding. For Vancouver’s Desi community, many of whose members live in Surrey and neighbouring municipalities where these alleged crime networks have operated, this case is a reminder of the ongoing federal and provincial effort to disrupt India-linked organized crime in the Lower Mainland, and of the serious legal consequences now being pursued on both sides of the border. [2]

🗳️ BC Conservative Leader Directs MLAs to Use the Term ‘Indian’ for First Nations, Sparking Community Debate

BC Conservative Party leader made headlines on July 27, 2026 when Daily Hive reported that MLAs had been directed to use the term ‘Indian’ when referring to First Nations peoples, departing from the more widely accepted language of ‘Indigenous’ or ‘First Nations.’ The directive set off debate across British Columbia, but the conversation takes on an added dimension for the province’s substantial South Asian population, particularly in communities like Surrey and the broader Punjabi-speaking belt of the Lower Mainland. For South Asian Canadians, particularly those who arrived in Canada in the 1960s through 1980s, the word ‘Indian’ was not just a descriptor but an identity: East Indian, Indo-Canadian, Indian. It appeared on immigration papers, in school registrations, and in everyday conversation across generations. The Conservative directive reignites a complicated linguistic overlap: a legal term from the Indian Act that applies to registered First Nations members, and a diaspora identity that millions of South Asians in Canada have long carried with pride. Critics argue the directive represents a political rollback of language reforms pursued alongside Indigenous communities; supporters cite the Indian Act’s own terminology as justification. For Desi readers in Vancouver, this story is not simply one of Indigenous politics. It is a question of who holds a word that, for entirely different communities, carries entirely different histories. [1]

Sources: [2] The Bureau | Sam Cooper · [1] Daily Hive