‘I didn’t know’: Alleged member of extortion gang claims he had no idea friend connected to shootings

An alleged foot soldier for a cross-Canada extortion network told an immigration hearing Friday he was an innocent victim of circumstance whose only crime was failing to ask a visiting friend why he showed up with a gun police later linked to shootings in Edmonton and Surrey.

Jashandeep Singh told an Immigration and Refugee Board tribunal member he was only fooling around with what he believed to be a replica handgun when he was filmed holding the weapon to a friend’s head.

The Indian national claimed he didn’t know anything about the activities of the gun’s owner, Arshdeep Singh, who has since been deported for his role in shootings, arsons and vehicle fraud in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.

“It was my bad. Why didn’t I ask them at that point in time?” Singh testified through a Punjabi interpreter.

“At that point, I didn’t know if I held the gun, they would connect me with extortion.”

A relationship with mid-level player

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship wants to deport Jashandeep Singh for organized criminality.

He told his admissibility hearing he came to Canada as a student in December 2022, completing his studies at Campbell College in Edmonton. He said he is currently awaiting word on an application for a post-graduate work permit.

Arshdeep Singh was deported earlier this year for organized criminality. Police believe he was a mid-level player in an extortion network operating in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. (Canada Border Services Agency)

Much of his testimony centred around events in mid-August 2025 that have proven pivotal in the attempts of Edmonton police to investigate a series of extortions allegedly linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

Edmonton police Const. Kevin St. Louis, the primary investigator for Project Garter — also known as Project Al-Extortion — told the tribunal on Thursday that Jashandeep Singh came to police’s attention while they were tracking Arshdeep Singh’s movements through Edmonton.

Police believe Arshdeep Singh, who came to Canada on a student visa in August 2022, was a mid-level player in the extortion network.

Officers saw social media video of Arshdeep Singh firing a gun on a gravel road and then managed to recover shell casings from the weapon, which they later matched to ammunition used at an extortion-related incident in Surrey months before.

‘He took out a gun’

Jashandeep Singh testified that Arshdeep Singh was a friend from college. Both men also worked in an Amazon warehouse at some point, but Arshdeep Singh wound up in Calgary while Jashandeep Singh remained in Edmonton.

On the night before the shooting incident in Edmonton, Jashandeep Singh said Arshdeep Singh called to say the following day was his birthday, asking if he could stay overnight at the home Jashandeep Singh shared with seven or eight other men.

Police investigate a shooting at a cafe in Surrey that was later tied to another incident involving a firearm in Edmonton. (Ethan Cairns/CBC)

“Arshdeep had a bag. He took out a gun from that bag and showed us. I did not know whether it was a licensed or unregistered gun,” Jashandeep Singh testified.

“When I picked it up, I was just holding it and another friend of mine who was living in the house with me, I started kidding with him. I just jokingly put it on his head as we were watching films.”

Jashandeep Singh told the tribunal he later travelled in Arshdeep Singh’s Mustang along with others to a spot where Arshdeep Singh fired the weapon into the air multiple times.

The Immigration and Refugee Board member overseeing the tribunal, Warren Puddicombe, pressed Jashandeep Singh on his apparent lack of interest in his friend’s activities.

“If I was at a party and someone I knew pulled out a gun —I may have some thoughts about where he got it, why he had it? What were your thoughts?” Puddicombe asked.

“Nothing like that came to my mind,” Jashandeep Singh responded.

“Had I asked him if he would tell me about it, I would have not held it. I could have told him at that point in time to just leave our house.”

Arshdeep Singh was arrested the day after the shooting incident last August.

According to previous testimony, police believe Jashandeep Singh got rid of the gun by giving it to a female friend.

But Jashandeep Singh claimed in his testimony that he gave the woman his passport and other vital certificates — not weapons. He claimed he was scared police would take his paperwork when they raided his home.

‘I’m a truthful man’

On the first day of the admissibility hearing, St. Louis testified about a letter sent from the Bishnoi gang directly to police in Abbotsford, claiming to have 1,000 gunmen in Canada, ready to carry out extortions.

But he claimed police believe a fracture in the group has “ultimately resulted in several different groups carrying out the same type of crime.”

Lawrence Bishnoi, right, is seen inside a courthouse in New Delhi, India, on April 18, 2023. A letter was sent from the Bishnoi gang to Abbotsford police last summer claiming to have 1,000 foot soldiers in Canada. (Rahul Singh/ANI/Reuters)

A further hint of that fracture emerged during Friday’s testimony when Jashandeep Singh was asked about another roommate in Edmonton who was shot in the abdomen.

Kelsie Peter, the representative for the Minister of Immigration, cited police documents in which the victim said “he believed there is someone from British Columbia visiting his rival group and this person is providing them with firearms.”

But Jashandeep Singh also claimed to have no knowledge of the reason for the shooting or why any kind of “rival gang” might be targeting his friend.

“I do not know much about it,” he said.

“The day he was shot, after that he said he had a little bit of dispute with someone from college.”

Peter pressed Jashandeep Singh on a number of inconsistencies between his testimony and earlier statements to the Canada Border Services Agency.

Jashandeep Singh claimed he hid facts the first time he was interviewed last December because he was “paranoid,” but came clean the following day.

“I told them the entire truth. Because I knew I have not done anything like that, which would harm Canada or the public of Canada,” Jashandeep Singh said.

“I’m a truthful man.”

Both Peter and Jashandeep Singh’s lawyer still have to make final submissions.

Jashandeep Singh is currently living with his sister and brother-in-law while he awaits the decision on whether he can stay in Canada. He said he feels ashamed and cannot look family members in the eye.

“My mother and father borrowed the money and sent me here,” he said, “so that I could make a good future for myself. They had many hopes and dreams for me.”

The standard to determine immigration inadmissibility is reasonable grounds to believe, which is less than the balance of probabilities required in civil court and a much less demanding standard than the beyond a reasonable doubt required for a criminal conviction.