‘You’re mad!” Caroline the greengrocer said cheerfully when I told her I was going skiing. A reasonable reaction since not so long ago I was shopping on crutches following a hip replacement. My sister’s friends were more concerned: “How old are you? 80? I don’t think this is a good idea. You’ll fall and break something.” My brother, Andrew, 86, decided it was better not to tell anyone.
For at least two decades I’d had a half-buried wish to experience one more ski trip. A final fix of blue sky, frosty air and the exhilaration that comes with finding yourself still intact at the bottom of a snow-covered slope. I was never much good, and hadn’t skied for decades, but that wasn’t the point. At 83, I needed to see if I could still do it. And if I could do it, how about inviting my sister, Kate, one-third of our Old Crones group who encourage each other to do parkrun each week? Then I remembered that, as teenagers, Andrew had joined me on my first ski holiday. That was 67 years ago, but Andrew used to be quite good, so I invited him too. My friend Penny, who is so absurdly young (67, so she says) that she doesn’t really count, was also allowed to come and try her luck with the oldies and practise her German. We all made an effort to get as fit as possible, but none of us had skied for at least 40 years.
Seefeld, in Tirol near Innsbruck, was our chosen destination, as it offers a variety of winter activities – assuming we’d survive our two-hour lesson on the first day (which, to be honest, was all the downhill skiing we had planned) – and is wonderfully free of après-ski malarky. It attracts families rather than partying youngsters, and is typically Austrian, with onion-domed churches and chalet-type houses. Our base was the friendly, family-run Hotel Helga and we ate at a different restaurant each evening.
“We call this Kiserwetter,” said Janina, our guide, when I remarked we couldn’t believe our luck at waking each morning to cloudless skies, warm sun and plenty of snow for early March. We were all pretending just to be excited, not worried at all, as we took a bus to the ski area. It was full of young people and families carrying skis and glowing with vitality. I thought I caught the young man helping us with our boot and ski hire rolling his eyes at the challenge.
Our instructor Ulrich, who had been pre-warned of our ages, smiled bravely as we stomped towards him. We were talking a bit too loudly, smiling too broadly, perhaps trying to postpone the moment when we had to clamp our feet on to the skis. Inwardly, I was sure I’d fall over as soon as I moved. But I didn’t. None of us did. Ulrich was very patient, giving us enough time at each stage of the lesson to gain in confidence.
Hilary Bradt (right) with her brother Andrew and sister Kate
Modern skis are much easier to manage, I discovered – shorter, lighter and rounded at the front – than the long, cumbersome things I remember from the 60s that always made me fall off the ski lift. We knew we would not be trusted on a lift of any sort, so assumed we would laboriously herringbone up the hill and slide down, falling over in the process. That’s how it was in 1958. But here there was a wonderful new device, a “travelator”, or moving walkway, that conveyed us effortlessly to the top of the gentle beginners’ slope, which was cluttered with fearless children. We were the only adults.
Two hours later, we hadn’t even fallen, had all managed some decent snowplough turns and even a sort of parallel turn. We were euphoric. “That was just amazing!” said Andrew, who isn’t given to hyperbole.
Could we have managed a whole week of skiing? Possibly, but the variety of activities Seefeld offered was more enticing. There were hikes around various lakes, buses giving us access to ridiculously picturesque villages, and the “winter hike to the Hämmermoosalm, 4.6km (and sled back down)”, as the information pack casually described it.
Having watched the Winter Olympics, Kate and I knew all about sledding. You run behind, pushing the sled, then leap on and hurtle down on your belly at speeds rivalling a Formula One car. Janina was reassuring. Nothing to worry about: we’d sit on the sled and steer with our feet. But we did worry. Andrew decided it wasn’t for him but we three plugged on.
Hilary Bradt hits the slopes
As a 12-year-old it had been tiring hauling my father’s homemade toboggan up Gold Hill common in Buckinghamshire in our snowy childhood, and as an 83-year-old it was tiring hauling an admittedly lighter toboggan uphill in oxygen-depleted air (Hämmermoosalm, a traditional alpine mountain hut and farm with dining rooms, is at 1,410 metres) for nearly 3 miles (5km). I lagged behind, muttering to myself about being too old for this. The glühwein and Gulaschsuppe (goulash) in warm sunshine at the restaurant at the top were restorative, but the descent couldn’t be postponed for ever.
Penny shot off ahead and was soon out of sight. I followed cautiously, getting off to pull the toboggan over bare gravel and mud, but soon realised I was wearing a broad grin: it was exhilarating. Halfway down I thought I’d wait and take an action photo of Kate. A man in a scarlet onesie skidded by, shouting something over his shoulder that seemed to be to do with Kate. No point in waiting, and I certainly wasn’t going to plod uphill again to check on her. If she were actually dead or injured, surely the chap would have told me?
“How did you keep control on those icy bits?” Kate demanded when we finally reassembled at the bottom. “My toboggan hit a bank and I was thrown off. As I lay there swearing, a man stopped, stared at me, and asked: ‘How old are you?’ I walked the rest of the way.”
In contrast, cross-country skiing delighted everyone: no slopes, no feeling of helplessness.
We also did some proper hikes around lakes with views of pines and snowy peaks, and tried the local swimming pool and sauna. Having never had a sauna before, I thought I ought to give it a go. It was all very strange and a bit alarming, with mixed-sex naked saunas the order of the day. I hired a towelling dressing gown and went exploring. In an apparently empty room, opaque with very hot steam, I sat down gingerly in my nakedness and took in my surroundings. It was like peering through a sweltering old-fashioned London fog, but I could just make out alcoves around the walls occupied by ghostly Greek-style statues. Rather impressive. Then one moved.
On our last day, after plenty of adrenaline-fuelled experiences, we finally began behaving like sensible pensioners, opting for a carriage ride, wrapped in rugs behind two enormous grey horses that clip-clopped through the still snow-covered landscape. And sampled the local cuisine and drank plenty of glühwein, of course.
What a wonderful, eye-opening and adventurous four days it had been. On the back of the Old Crones’ T-shirts is the message: “We do because we can”. Unless you try it, you don’t know what you can do.
The trip was provided by Visit Tiroland Seefeld. Double rooms at Hotel Helga in January 2026 start at €952 a weekroom-only. Ski hire at Sailer from €232for six days
The United States Treasury has sanctioned two Haitians, one a former police officer and the other an alleged gang leader, for their affiliation with the Viv Ansanm criminal alliance.
On Friday, a Treasury news release accused Dimitri Herard and Kempes Sanon of colluding with Viv Ansanm, thereby contributing to the violence wracking Haiti.
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The sanctions block either person from accessing assets or property in the US. They also prohibit US-based entities from engaging in transactions with the two men.
“Today’s action underscores the critical role of gang leaders and facilitators like Herard and Sanon, whose support enables Viv Ansanm’s campaign of violence, extortion, and terrorism in Haiti,” Bradley T Smith, the director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.
Since taking office for a second term, US President Donald Trump has sought to take a hardline stance against criminal organisations across Latin America, blaming the groups for unregulated immigration and drug-trafficking on US soil.
Trump has termed their actions a criminal “invasion”, using nativist rhetoric to justify military action in international waters.
Viv Ansanm has been part of Trump’s crackdown. On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order setting the stage for his administration to label Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
That process began several weeks later. In May, Viv Ansanm and another Haitian criminal organisation, Gran Grif, were added to the growing list of criminal networks to receive the “foreign terrorist” designation.
Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in 2021, a power vacuum has formed in Haiti. The last national elections were held in 2016, and its last democratically elected officials reached the end of their terms in 2023.
That has created a crisis of public confidence that criminal networks, including gangs, have exploited to expand their power. Viv Ansanm is one of the most powerful groups, as a coalition of gangs largely based in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
In July, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned that the gangs now have “near-total control of the capital”, with 90 percent of its territory under their control.
Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced in the country as a result of the gang violence, a 36 percent increase over 2024. Last year, more than 5,600 people were killed, and a further 2,212 injured.
In Friday’s sanctions, the US Treasury accused Herard, the former police officer, of having “colluded with the Viv Ansanm alliance”, including through training and the provision of guns.
It also noted that Herard had been imprisoned by Haitian authorities for involvement in the Moise assassination. He later escaped in 2024.
Sanon, meanwhile, is identified as the leader of the Bel Air gang, part of the Viv Ansanm alliance. The Treasury said he “played a significant role” in building Viv Ansanm’s power, and it added that he has been implicated in killings, extortion and kidnappings.
The UN Security Council echoed the US’s sanctions against Sanon and Herard, designating both men on Friday. It also agreed to extend its arms embargo on Haiti, which began in 2022.
In September, the UNSC also approved the creation of a “gang suppression force”, with a 12-month mandate to work with Haitian police and military. That force is expected to replace a Kenyan-led mission to reinforce Haiti’s security forces, and it is slated to include 5,550 people.
But on Friday, the Trump administration said that the UN had not gone far enough in its efforts to combat Haiti’s gangs. It called for more designations against individual suspects.
“While we applaud the Council for designating these individuals, the list is not complete. There are more enablers of Haiti’s insecurity evading accountability,” an open letter from US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta read.
“Haiti deserves better. Colleagues, we will continue pressing for more designations through the Security Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure the sanctions lists are fit for purpose.”
WIMBLEDON legends are thrilled to see Thomas Tuchel go full Crazy Gang in England’s bid for World Cup glory.
The England boss is taking a leaf out of the Dons playbook by telling his Three Lions to use long throws and big goal-kicks to secure their first major trophy since 1966.
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Thomas Tuchel has brought back some Crazy Gang tacticsCredit: Getty
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Wimbledon shocked Liverpool to win the FA Cup in 1988Credit: Getty
Wimbledon were renowned for their direct and physical style of play both during the 1980s and 1990s.
As well as climbing from non-league to the top tier, they also pulled off one of football’s biggest shocks to beat Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final at Wembley.
Former Dons manager Dave Bassett told Sun Sport: “I think Tuchel’s on the right lines.
“The purists have been living in fantasy land. Even Manchester City use the long ball more. Our old ways are catching on.
“If you can get the ball forward — not aimlessly — and get players running in behind, it unsettles defences.
“People panic more with long throws than they ever do with corners — they become frightened to death.
“Going sideways and backwards doesn’t get you goals.
“We didn’t hang around. The players knew it was one-touch and going into the box. But we did not get the credit because people called it anti-football.”
Bassett backs Tuchel’s decision to leave Jude Bellingham out of his latest squad — raising the possibility the Real Madrid superstar may not even feature in the USA, Canada and Mexiconextsummer.
The 81-year-old added: “Tuchel needs to decide what formation he wants and which players best suit his system and share his vision.
Thomas Tuchel explains England squad selection for Wales and Latvia fixtures with Foden and Bellingham out
“Bellingham is a very good player but if he’s not conducive to the team spirit, then tough luck on Bellingham. One person cannot hold the team to ransom.
“When you go away, Tuchel can’t have moody, selfish people who are not sold on his ideas.
“If players are suspect he won’t take them — even if they may be great players.”
Bobby Gould took the reins after Bassett fell out with Dons owner Sam Hammam — and led them to their most famous win.
His first masterstroke after taking over the Crazy Gang was hiring ex-England coach Don Howe.
And Gould, 79, said: “England’s loss was Wimbledon’s gain with Don.
“We just added a bit more quality rather than ripping it up and starting again. It worked wonders.
“Don was Arsenal through and through and steeped in tradition — but even he got into the mind games.
“In the Wembley dressing room he told every player and staff member to put their watch back ten minutes.
“When the referee came to tell us to get into the tunnel, Don said, ‘no, not yet your watch must be wrong’. So off the ref went, we kept Kenny Dalglish & Co waiting — and that was our first victory of the day.”
Tuchel’s England exploits remind Gould of the Dons’ good old days.
He added: “England have scored a couple of goals under Tuchel right out of the Wimbledon playbook.
“But it showed our much-maligned tactics still work because the opposition don’t know what’s hit them when you get forward quickly and slaughter them with crosses or long throws.
“Mentally and physically you’ve got to be in it together and that gets the opposition thinking, ‘what have we got to do to stop them?’”
Wembley goal hero Lawrie Sanchez went on to use his Wimbledon experience as Northern Ireland manager.
And he masterminded a shock 1-0 victory over Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England at Windsor Park 20 years ago.
Sanchez, 65, said: “The thing the Crazy Gang had is we were greater than the sum of our parts.
“Whether you could get away with half the gamesmanship we got up to with 24 cameras focused on games is a different matter.
“But on the football side, the set-plays, strength of the characters, strong team ethic and belief in what we were doing would still stand us in good stead.
“We were stats-based well before stats came into play and our set-plays were the logical development from that stat-based stuff. We did set-plays in training boringly for hours on Thursdays and Fridays — but it paid off.
“Whether you can get that in an England team in a short space of time is a different matter.
“But they’ve been doing the same thing for the last 59 years and not won anything.”
Full-back Nigel Winterburn helped Wimbledon to a couple of promotions under Bassett but left for Arsenal a year before the cup glory.
He said: “No one liked us because of the way we played but we were often cast-offs with a determination to prove people wrong.
“Boy-oh-boy we intimidated a lot of teams.”
But the likes of John Fashanu and Vinny Jones met their match when they faced the British Army.
Winterburn, 61, said: “Dave Bassett liked to bond everyone in pre-season.
“We’d get a typed itinerary saying which five-star hotel awaited.
“But we would end up in the most basic places — usually with the army.
“Once we had to camp out overnight, attack a mock fort and rescue a so-called prisoner.
“It ended up in chaos with Fash and Vinny fighting soldiers.
“There were weird and wonderful times. It forged a togetherness that made sure we were always there to help team-mates.”
Half of the population is projected to experience critical food shortages by mid-2026 as armed groups block aid.
Published On 11 Oct 202511 Oct 2025
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More than half of Haiti’s population is experiencing critical levels of hunger as armed groups tighten their grip across the Caribbean nation and the ravaged economy continues its downward spiral.
A report released on Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) found that some 5.7 million Haitians – of a population of roughly 11 million – are facing severe food shortages. The crisis threatens to worsen as gang violence displaces families, destroys agricultural production, and prevents aid from reaching those desperately in need.
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The assessment shows 1.9 million people are already at emergency hunger levels, marked by severe food gaps and dangerous rates of malnutrition. Another 3.8 million face crisis-level food insecurity.
The situation is expected to deteriorate further, with nearly six million people projected to face acute hunger by mid-2026 as Haiti enters its lean agricultural season.
Haiti’s government announced plans on Friday to establish a Food and Nutrition Security Office to coordinate relief efforts. Louis Gerald Gilles, a member of the transitional presidential council, said authorities would mobilise resources quickly to reach those most affected.
But the response faces enormous obstacles. Armed groups now control an estimated 90 percent of Port-au-Prince, the capital, and have expanded into agricultural regions in recent months.
Violence has forced 1.3 million people from their homes – a 24 percent increase since December – with many sheltering in overcrowded temporary sites lacking basic services.
Farmers who remain on their land must negotiate with gangs for access and surrender portions of their harvests. Small businesses have shuttered, eliminating income sources for countless families. Even when crops reach normal yields, produce cannot reach Port-au-Prince because gangs block the main roads.
The economic devastation compounds the crisis. Haiti has recorded six consecutive years of recession, while food prices jumped 33 percent last July compared with the previous year.
The deepening emergency affects children with particular severity. A separate report this week found 680,000 children displaced by violence – nearly double previous figures – with more than 1,000 schools forced to close and hundreds of minors recruited by armed groups.
The international community authorised a new 5,550-member “gang suppression force” at the United Nations earlier this month, replacing a smaller mission that struggled with funding shortages.
But the security situation remains volatile. On Thursday, heavy gunfire erupted when government officials attempted to meet at the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, forcing a hasty evacuation from an area long controlled by gangs.
Martine Villeneuve, Haiti director at Action Against Hunger, warned that while some improvements have been made, progress remains fragile without long-term investment to address the crisis’s root causes.
Alleged gang member Juan Espinoza Martinez was arrested Monday on charges of ordering a hit against a border patrol agent. Photo by Homeland Security.
Oct. 7 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors have charged an alleged member of a Chicago-based gang of ordering a hit on a prominent border patrol leader, according to documents unsealed Monday.
The criminal complaint accuses Juan Espinoza Martinez of orchestrating a murder-for-hire scheme, alleging that he offered $10,000 in Snapchat messages to other members of the Latin Kings street gang to kill the unnamed official.
The Homeland Security Department later named that official as U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, a formerly obscure regional agent who has risen to prominence amid President Donald Trump‘s aggressive efforts to deport undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Those efforts include Operation Midway Blitz, a crackdown in Chicago that has drawn protests and pushback from local officials. The charges against Martinez were filed as the Trump administration remains locked in legal battles with Democratic governors who object to his deployment of federal troops to cities.
The complaint is based on information provided to law enforcement by a confidential informant who described Martinez as a high-ranking member in the gang. After border patrol agents shot a woman on Saturday in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, Martinez ordered gang members to increase their presence in the area, the complaint states.
Screenshots included in the complaint show that Martinez offered $2,000 for information on Bovino or “10k if u take him down.”
“Placing a bounty on the head of a federal officer is an attack on the rule of law and on every American who depends on law enforcement to keep them safe,” Deputy Attorney General Robert Blanche said in a statement. “This case is exactly what we mean when we say Take Back America – taking back every neighborhood and street corner from violent thugs and criminal gangs and returning them to the law-abiding members of our communities.”
It’s not clear if Martinez has legal counsel and he has not made any public statements.
Watch: BBC News joins police officers on dawn raids targeting gang behind phone smuggling
Police say they have dismantled an international gang suspected of smuggling up to 40,000 stolen mobile phones from the UK to Chinain the last year.
In what the Metropolitan Police says is the UK’s largest ever operation against phone thefts, 18 suspects have been arrested and more than 2,000 stolen devices discovered.
Police believe the gang could be responsible for exporting up to half of all phones stolen in London – where most mobiles are taken in the UK.
BBC News has been given access to the operation, including details of the suspects, their methods, and to dawn raids on 28 properties in London and Hertfordshire.
The investigation was triggered after a victim traced a stolen phone last year.
“It was actually on Christmas Eve and a victim electronically tracked their stolen iPhone to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport,” Detective Inspector Mark Gavin said.
“The security there was eager to help out and they found the phone was in a box, among another 894 phones.”
The left-hand box contained the phone that sparked the whole investigation – it was heard ringing inside
Officers discovered almost all the phones had been stolen and in this case were being shipped to Hong Kong. Further shipments were then intercepted and officers used forensics on the packages to identify two men.
As the investigation honed in on the two men, police bodycam footage captured officers, some with Tasers drawn, carrying out a dramatic mid-road interception of a car. Inside, officers found devices wrapped in foil – an attempt by offenders to transport stolen devices undetected.
Two men are arrested as part of a mid-road interception by an unmarked police car, as seen on bodycam footage
The men, both Afghan nationals in their 30s, were charged with conspiring to receive stolen goods and conspiring to conceal or remove criminal property.
When they were stopped, dozens of phones were found in their car, and about 2,000 more devices were discovered at properties linked to them. A third man, a 29-year-old Indian national, has since been charged with the same offences.
Det Insp Gavin said “finding the original shipment of phones was the starting point for an investigation that uncovered an international smuggling gang, which we believe could be responsible for exporting up to 40% of all the phones stolen in London”.
Last week, officers made a further 15 arrests on suspicion of theft, handling stolen goods and conspiracy to steal.
All but one of the suspects are women, including a Bulgarian national. Some 30 devices were found during early morning raids.
Multiple phones, some wrapped in foil, were found in the car after the two Afghan nationals were arrested
The number of phones stolen in London has almost tripled in the last four years, from 28,609 in 2020, to 80,588 in 2024. Three-quarters of all the phones stolen in the UK are now taken in London.
More than 20 million people visit the capital every year and tourist hotspots such as the West End and Westminster are prolific for phone snatching and theft.
A growing demand for second-hand phones, both in the UK and abroad, is believed to be a major driver behind the rise in thefts – and many victims end up never getting their devices back.
Phone snatchers often use e-bikes or mopeds to make off at speed
“We’re hearing that some criminals are stopping dealing drugs and moving on to the phone business because it’s more lucrative,” Policing Minister Sarah Jones said.
“If you steal a phone and it’s worth hundreds of pounds you can understand why criminals who are one step ahead and want to exploit new crimes are turning to that world.”
Senior officers said the criminal gang specifically targeted Apple products because of their profitability overseas.
The Met Police investigation discovered street thieves were being paid up to £300 per handset – and the force said stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given they are internet-enabled and more attractive for those trying to bypass censorship.
Commander Andrew Featherstone, the Met’s lead for tackling phone theft, said: “This is the largest crackdown on mobile phone theft and robbery in the UK in the most extraordinary set of operations the Met has ever undertaken.
“We’ve dismantled criminal networks at every level from street-level thieves to international organised crime groups exporting tens of thousands of stolen devices each year.”
Many victims of phone theft have been critical of police – including the Met – for not doing enough.
Frequent complaints include officers not helping when victims report the exact real-time locations of their stolen phone to the police using Apple’s Find My iPhone or similar tracking services.
Last year, Natalie Mitchel, 29, had her phone stolen on Oxford Street, in central London. She told the BBC she now feels on edge when visiting the capital.
“It’s really unnerving being here and obviously I’m not sure who is around me. I’m worried about my bag, I’m worried about my phone,” she said.
“I think the Met Police should be doing a lot more – possibly setting up some more CCTV surveillance or seeing if there’s any way they’ve got some undercover police officers just to tackle this problem.
“I think because of the number of cases and the number of people getting in touch with them, they don’t have the resources and capacity to deal with all these cases.”
For its part, the Metropolitan Police – which has taken to TikTok and other social media platforms with various videos of officers tackling phone snatchers in recent months – says personal robbery has been reduced by 13% and theft is down 14% in London so far this year. It says up to 80 more officers are joining the West End team to focus on crimes such as phone robbery.
The force will have to lose almost 2,000 officers, as well as cut a number of services to deal with a £260m hole in its budget over the next year.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge has concluded that the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges may be an illegal retaliation after he successfully sued the Trump administration over his deportation to El Salvador.
The case of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was a construction worker living legally in Maryland when he was wrongly deported to his home country, has become a proxy for the partisan struggle over President Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown and mass deportation agenda.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw late Friday granted a request by lawyers for Abrego Garcia and ordered discovery and an evidentiary hearing in Abrego Garcia’s effort to show that the federal human smuggling case against him in Tennessee is illegally retaliatory.
Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia had shown that there is “some evidence that the prosecution against him may be vindictive.” That evidence included statements by various Trump administration officials and the timeline of the charges being filed.
The departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to inquiries about the case Saturday.
In his 16-page ruling, Crenshaw said many statements by administration officials “raise cause for concern,” but one stood out.
That statement by Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, on a Fox News program after Abrego Garcia was charged in June, seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case, Crenshaw wrote.
Blanche’s ”remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego’s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights” to sue over his deportation “rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct,” Crenshaw wrote.
Likewise, Crenshaw noted that the Department of Homeland Security reopened an investigation into Abrego Garcia days after the Supreme Court said in April that the Trump administration must work to bring back Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia was indicted May 21 and charged June 6, the day the U.S. brought him back from a prison in El Salvador. He pleaded not guilty and is now being held in Pennsylvania.
If convicted in the Tennessee case, Abrego Garcia will be deported, federal officials have said. A U.S. immigration judge has denied Abrego Garcia’s bid for asylum, although he can appeal.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager.
In 2019, he was arrested by immigration agents. He requested asylum but was not eligible because he had been in the U.S. for more than a year. But the judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he faced danger from a gang that targeted his family.
The human smuggling charges in Tennessee stem from a 2022 traffic stop. He was not charged at the time.
Trump administration officials have waged a relentless public relations campaign against Abrego Garcia, repeatedly referring to him as a member of the MS-13 gang, among other things, despite the fact he has not been convicted of any crimes. The government has provided no clear evidence of gang affiliation, and Abrego Garcia denies the allegation.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have denounced the criminal charges and the deportation efforts, saying they are an attempt to punish him for standing up to the administration.
Abrego Garcia contends that, while imprisoned in El Salvador — in a notorious lockup with a documented history of human rights abuses — he suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has denied those allegations.
Mohammed Zahid was known as Boss Man and attacked the girls from when they were aged 13
A grooming gang ringleader who raped two schoolgirls in Rochdale has been jailed for 35 years.
Mohammed Zahid, 65, known as Boss Man, gave the girls from the age of 13 free underwear from his market stall in return for the expectation of regular sex with him and his friends.
The father-of-three, who showed a “chilling disregard” for the girls, was one of seven men convicted in June of committing a raft of sexual offences between 2001 and 2006.
Mushtaq Ahmed, 67 , Kasir Bashir, 50, Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 49, Nisar Hussain, 41 and Roheez Khan, 39, were also received lengthy prison sentences at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court.
The court heard how the girls were sexually exploited in filthy flats, car parks, alleyways and disused warehouses in the Greater Manchester town.
Referred to as Girl A and Girl B, they were treated as “sex slaves” and expected to “have sex with the men whenever and wherever they wanted”.
Both girls had “deeply troubled home lives” and were plied with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes and given places to stay by the men, the court was told.
GMP
Mohammed Shahzad, Mushtaq Ahmed and Kasir Bashir were found guilty following a trial
The prosecution said the girls were abused, degraded and then “discarded” by the paedophiles, who worked either at the market or as taxi drivers.
Girl A told the jury she may have been preyed on by hundreds of men as her phone number was passed around, adding “there was that many it was hard to keep count”.
She told local children’s services in 2004 that she was “hanging around” with groups of older men, drinking and smoking cannabis, the court heard.
GMP
Nisar Hussain, Roheez Khan and Naheem Akram were also convicted
Girl B, who was living in a children’s home when she came into contact with the men on the market, said police and social workers knew what was going on but “weren’t concerned enough to do anything about it”.
“It was in my file, when I looked it up. I read it,” the woman, now aged in her 30s, told the court.
“I was picked up by the police for loitering and prostituting from the age of 10.”
Social services and police have previously apologised for their past failings regarding the girls.
The United Nations Security Council has voted to expand an international security force deployed to Haiti and transform it into a so-called “Gang Suppression Force”.
The resolution passed by the council on Tuesday provides a clear mandate for the force to work with local authorities to “neutralise, isolate, and deter” gangs, secure infrastructure, and seek to secure institutional stability. It would raise the personnel ceiling from 2,500 in the current mission, first approved in 2023, to 5,550 personnel.
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The resolution also requests that the UN secretary-general establish a UN Support Office in Haiti to provide increased logistical support amid the Caribbean nation’s overlapping security, humanitarian and political crises.
“The result today allows us to have the necessary reconfiguration on the ground in order to face the gangs and, therefore, address the insecurity situation in the country,” Panama’s Representative to the UN Eloy Alfaro De Alba said following the vote.
“Today, we say to Haiti that, once and for all, you are not alone,” Alfaro De Alba said.
Panama and the United States first introduced the latest resolution in August. It passed on Tuesday with 12 votes in favour and none against. Permanent Security Council members China and Russia, along with rotating member Pakistan, abstained from the vote.
Following the vote, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said “the tools of international assistance to Haiti” previously approved by the Security Council had “failed to produce any sustainable results”.
He criticised the resolution for having a “virtually unrestricted mandate to use force against anyone and everyone labelled with the vague term ‘gangs’”, while further calling the plan “ill-conceived and rushed”.
Haiti has a controversial history when it comes to foreign intervention, particularly in light of rampant sexual abuses committed by peacekeepers deployed in the wake of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. The forces were also responsible for a cholera outbreak that killed about 10,000 people.
But speaking last week, during the United Nations General Assembly General Debate, Laurent Saint-Cyr, the current chairman of the Transitional Presidential Council of Haiti, voiced support for a new force, noting that the Kenyan-led security support mission deployed for more than 15 months in the country remains woefully understaffed and underfunded.
Fewer than 1,000 police officers have been deployed under the mission, which is officially set to end on October 2, despite an initial pledge of 2,500. Nearly all of the capital, Port au Prince, remains under the control of powerful gangs.
“It is a war between criminals who want to impose violence as the social order and an unarmed population struggling to preserve human dignity,” Saint-Cyr said.
According to the UN, at least 1.3 million Haitians remain internally displaced due to violence, with 5.7 million facing food insecurity. At least 3,100 people have been killed in violent incidents between January and June 2025. At least 2,300 grave violations against children have been recorded.
The country is also in the midst of a political crisis that began with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. A general election has been repeatedly postponed amid the unrest.
On Tuesday, acting Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime hailed the resolution’s passage.
“This decision marks a major step forward in the partnership between Haiti and the international community,” he said.
Rights observers have also offered tentative support for a renewed international mission to Haiti, with Human Rights Watch saying any operation must have adequate funding and human rights protections.
The resolution passed on Tuesday does not provide specific details on such safeguards, including clear rules of engagement, saying instead that parties must work to establish those rules in line with “Haiti’s sovereignty and in strict compliance with international law”.
Like the Kenyan-led mission, the new Gang Suppression Force will also mostly rely on often unpredictable voluntary contributions from UN members.
In a statement following the vote, Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said: “After months of reckless inaction, the UN Security Council has finally taken a step to respond to Haiti’s devastating crisis”.
“For the newly created ‘Gang Suppression Force’ to be effective and avoid repeating past abuses, it should have sustained and predictable funding, sufficient personnel, and robust human rights safeguards,” Goebertus said.
The move will enable asset seizures and prosecutions of Bishnoi gang, which has been accused of targeting Sikh activists abroad.
Canada has formally declared India’s Bishnoi gang a “terrorist” organisation, giving authorities the power to freeze assets, block funding, and prosecute members under “anti-terrorism” laws.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree announced the designation on Monday, saying the gang had instilled fear within Indian diaspora communities across the country.
“Specific communities have been targeted for terror, violence and intimidation by the Bishnoi Gang. Listing this group of criminal terrorists gives us more powerful and effective tools to confront and put a stop to their crimes,” said Anandasangaree.
Ottawa stressed that “acts of violence and terror have no place in Canada, especially those that target specific communities to create a climate of fear and intimidation.”
The gang, run by jailed Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, is described by Canadian officials as a transnational criminal syndicate operating largely from India but with a presence in Canada.
Bishnoi, 32, has been imprisoned for a decade in India but is accused of directing a network of hundreds of members engaged in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, extortion, and targeted killings.
Canadian police have previously alleged that Indian intelligence services used Bishnoi associates to carry out killings and violent intimidation of supporters of the Khalistan movement, which seeks an independent state for the Sikh minority in the Indian state of Punjab, abroad.
India dismissed the claims, accusing Ottawa of failing to provide evidence and of ignoring repeated extradition requests for Bishnoi-linked suspects.
The Canadian government says the “terrorist” listing not only allows property and funds tied to the gang to be seized but also strengthens law enforcement’s ability to disrupt recruitment, financing, and international travel linked to the gang’s operations.
Political pressure has been mounting on Ottawa, with opposition leaders and provincial premiers in Alberta and British Columbia demanding tougher measures against the gang. Canada is home to more than 770,000 Sikhs, accounting for about 2 percent of Canada’s population.
‘A strong signal to India’
The Bishnoi gang’s notoriety has grown amid wider diplomatic tensions between Ottawa and New Delhi. The assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Vancouver-area gurdwara in June 2023 threw the issue into sharp relief.
Canada accused Indian officials of directing intelligence to “criminal organisations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang” to silence critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government abroad – an allegation India rejected.
New Delhi insists Ottawa has ignored more than two dozen extradition requests for Bishnoi members and continues to shield individuals wanted for crimes in India.
Despite the deep rift, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s national security adviser, Nathalie Drouin, said last week that Indian officials had pledged to cooperate in ongoing investigations and agreed to refrain from cross-border repression.
MEXICO CITY — To help justify a sweeping deportation campaign, an extraordinary U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and unprecedented strikes on boats allegedly trafficking drugs, President Trump has repeated a mantra: Tren de Aragua.
He insists that the street gang, which was founded about a decade ago in Venezuela, is attempting an “invasion” of the United States and threatens “the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.” Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump described the group as “an enemy of all humanity” and an arm of Venezuela’s authoritarian government.
According to experts who study the gang and Trump’s own intelligence officials, none of that is true.
While Tren de Aragua has been linked to cases of human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping and has expanded its footprint as Venezuela’s diaspora has spread throughout the Americas, there is little evidence that it poses a threat to the U.S.
“Tren de Aragua does not have the capacity to invade any country, especially the most powerful nation on Earth,” said Ronna Rísquez, a Venezuelan journalist who wrote a book about the gang. The group’s prowess, she said, had been vastly exaggerated by the Trump administration in order to rationalize the deportation of migrants, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and perhaps even an effort to drive Venezuela’s president from power.
“It is being instrumentalized to justify political actions,” she said of the gang. “In no way does it endanger the national security of the United States.”
Before last year, few Americans had heard of Tren de Aragua.
The group formed inside a prison in Venezuela’s Aragua state then spread as nearly 8 million Venezuelans fled poverty and political repression under the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Gang members were accused of sex trafficking, drug sales, homicides and other crimes in countries including Chile, Brazil and Colombia.
As large numbers of Venezuelan migrants began entering the United States after requesting political asylum at the southern border, authorities in a handful of states tied crimes to members of the gang.
It was Trump who put the group on the map.
While campaigning for reelection last year, he appeared at an event in Aurora, Colo., where law enforcement blamed members of Tren de Aragua for several crimes, including murder. Trump stood next to large posters featuring mugshots of Venezuelan immigrants.
“Occupied America. TDA Gang Members,” they read. Banners said: “Deport Illegals Now.”
Shortly after he took office, Trump declared an “invasion” by Tren de Aragua and invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 18th century law that allows the president to deport immigrants during wartime. His administration flew 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were housed in a notorious prison, even though few of the men had documented links to Tren de Aragua and most had no criminal records in the United States.
In recent months, Trump has again evoked the threat of Tren de Aragua to explain the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean.
In July, his administration declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro. That same month, he ordered the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American cartels that his government has labeled terrorists.
Three times in recent weeks, U.S. troops have struck boats off the coast of Venezuela that it said carried Tren de Aragua members who were trafficking drugs.
The administration offered no proof of those claims. Fourteen people have been killed.
Trump has warned that more strikes are to come. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” he said in his address to the United Nations.
While he insists the strikes are aimed at disrupting the drug trade — claiming without evidence that each boat was carrying enough drugs to kill 25,000 Americans — analysts say there is little evidence that Tren de Aragua is engaged in high-level drug trafficking, and no evidence that it is involved in the movement of fentanyl, which is produced in Mexico by chemicals imported from China. The DEA estimates that just 8% of cocaine that is trafficked into the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.
That has fueled speculation about whether the real goal may be regime change.
“Everybody is wondering about Trump’s end game,” said Irene Mia, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on global security.
She said that while there are officials within the White House who appear eager to work with Venezuela, others, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are open about their desire to topple Maduro and other leftist strongmen in the region.
“We’re not going to have a cartel operating or masquerading as a government operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio told Fox News this month.
Top U.S. intelligence officials have said they don’t believe Maduro has links to Tren de Aragua.
A declassified memo produced by the Office of Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between his regime and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.: “The small size of TDA’s cells, its focus on low-skill criminal activities and its decentralized structure make it highly unlikely that TDA coordinates large volumes of human trafficking or migrant smuggling.”
Michael Paarlberg, a political scientist who studies Latin America at Virginia Commonwealth University, said he believes Trump is using the gang to achieve political goals — and distract from domestic controversies such as his decision to close the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Tren de Aragua, he said, is much less powerful than other gangs in Latin America. “But it has been a convenient boogeyman for the Trump administration.”
On the night Los Angeles police claim he carried out an act of gangland vengeance, Oscar Eagle could barely walk.
In March 1998, Eagle was only 17 and using crutches to get around after he was wounded in a drive-by shooting. The bullet is still in his leg to this day, marked by a coin-shaped indentation on his calf.
At the same time that police allege Eagle opened fire on an 18th Street gang member in an act of retribution, he says he was at an East L.A. hospital because a friend’s cousin was giving birth, according to court records.
Oscar Eagle in his childhood neighborhood of Pico-Union in 1996.
(Courtesy of Megan Baca)
Eagle knew he was innocent. Witnesses placed him at the hospital and he said medical records could prove he wasn’t mobile enough to carry out the crime.
But a combination of dubious legal representation and an arrest made by members of a notoriously corrupt unit in the Los Angeles Police Department saw Eagle sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.
In July, a judge granted a joint motion from the California Innocence Project and the L.A. County district attorney’s office to vacate Eagle’s conviction, citing ineffective assistance of counsel and questions about the behavior of LAPD detectives on the case.
For reform advocates, Eagle’s case epitomizes the problem with prosecuting teens as adults, but it also marks a positive sign for the L.A. County district attorney’s office’s conviction review unit under Nathan Hochman, who personally appeared at the hearing where Eagle was set free.
“This is what I’ve been dreaming of every day,” a tearful Eagle, 45, said during an interview in late July.
Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California is surrounded by razor wire, tall fences and towers manned by guards with rifles.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)
Formed in 2015 and expanded under former Dist. Atty. George Gascón, Hochman has shown a continued commitment to the conviction review unit. After facing criticism for recording just four exonerations from 2015 to 2020, the unit has been involved in 12 in just the last four years, according to a district attorney’s office spokesperson.
“I think that a D.A. sends a strong message when you appear in court, that it’s both a case of serious concern to the D.A.’s office, and it’s one where you want to see justice done,” Hochman said.
Seeing L.A. County’s top prosecutor personally endorse his release is a stark turnaround for Eagle, who spent most of his life believing police would do anything to keep him behind bars.
After entering California’s adult prison system as a teenager, Eagle said he watched a friend die in a riot at Pelican Bay. He spent years in isolation after he says he was erroneously connected to the Mexican Mafia. Both of his parents died while Eagle was locked up, and he can’t even mention their names without tearing up to this day.
Eagle said he grew up in a section of Pico-Union where all his neighbors were affiliated with a local gang set, the Burlington Locos. A young tagger who went by “Clown,” he too wound up part of the crew.
In the late 1990s, Eagle became a target of detectives with an infamous LAPD unit known as C.R.A.S.H., short for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.
At the time, the LAPD’s Rampart division was home to C.R.A.S.H. officers who falsified reports and framed civilians, later triggering a scandal that ended with the U.S. Department of Justice placing the LAPD under a consent decree.
Officers watch from inside the front entrance of the LAPD’s Rampart Station in the Westlake district in 2010 as protesters demonstrate outside against police brutality.
(Reed Saxon / Associated Press)
Eagle says that in 1996 he was wrongfully arrested for gun possession as a juvenile by Rafael Perez, the central figure of the Rampart scandal. Perez later admitted the report that led to Eagle’s first arrest was falsified, according to court records.
But it was Eagle’s next run-in with police that proved far more consequential.
In March 1998, 18th Street Gang member Benjamin Urias was shot twice on Burlington Avenue in what police believed to be retribution for a prior attack on a Burlington Locos member, court records show. Urias, who was hospitalized for two days and released, told police the shooter walked with a limp.
Investigators from a C.R.A.S.H. unit based in Rampart locked onto Eagle, due to his gang connections and the fact that he was said to be walking with a limp after he was injured in a shooting, according to his attorney, Megan Baca, of the California Innocence Project.
Charges against Eagle were initially dismissed after Urias failed to show up for a preliminary hearing. But a month later, LAPD homicide detectives Thomas Murrell and Kenneth Wiseman prodded the shooting victim to pick Eagle out of a photo lineup, according to the motion to vacate his conviction.
Urias initially told police he did not recognize anyone in the lineup, records show.
“OK, circle that guy … Number 4 is the one you were pointing to,” Murrell said to Urias, according to a recording of the interview described in court records.
An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment. The audio recording that called the validity of the identification into question was never raised at Eagle’s trial, according to Baca.
Despite concerns about the behavior of the detectives, Hochman said he was not immediately ordering a review of other cases involving Murrell and Wiseman. Neither Rampart detective was part of a C.R.A.S.H. unit.
Murrell denied any wrongdoing and told The Times he remembered Eagle’s name because the then-teenager was a suspect in multiple gang homicides at the time.
He did not offer specifics, but dismissed Eagle’s medical alibi, contending the teen “wasn’t on crutches” when police arrested him.
“If he made an ID, we didn’t cheat, I can tell you that … I’ve never done that,” said Murrell. “We did everything by the book.”
Attempts to contact Wiseman were unsuccessful.
Eagle said things were only made worse by his former attorney, Patrick Lake, who didn’t make an opening statement at trial or raise any of Eagle’s alibi evidence. When Eagle questioned his lawyer, Lake joked that he was “saving the best for last.”
Oscar Eagle with his defense attorney, Megan Baca of the Innocence Project.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
As Eagle’s family grew frustrated in the gallery, he said his mother passed him a note that simply read “fire him.” Eagle tried to get rid of Lake, but a judge denied his request. Eagle was convicted of murder. And since he was tried as an adult, he faced 25-years-to-life.
Lake did not respond to a request for comment. Baca said she had one conversation with Lake, in which he claimed he didn’t remember Eagle or his case.
At the time, prosecutors in California could directly file charges against teens in adult court, sending hundreds of children every year to adult prisons such as Pelican Bay, where Eagle wound up. That practice has been abolished by a change in state law, but Baca said she’s encountered too many cases where teens had their lives stolen because they were wrongfully convicted and tried as adults.
“It’s egregious, but I think that it happens all the time,” Baca said. “So many of my clients were juveniles and they got adult life.”
Eagle said his stay in prison was long and painful. He spent six years in segregated housing, essentially isolation, after Baca said her client was wrongly labeled as a Mexican Mafia associate. He denied any affiliation with the powerful prison-based syndicate. Eagle said prison officials took a leap in logic to link him to the gang based on a “kite,” or prison note, sent by another inmate.
As he grew older behind bars, Eagle started to read voraciously. His father sent recommended books. Eagle says he gravitated toward the Bible.
Oscar Eagle at an L.A. County juvenile detention camp in 1997.
(Courtesy of Megan Baca)
Even though he knew he hadn’t committed the crime that put him in prison, Eagle said he still realized there were things about his life that needed to change.
“I was 30 years old. My perspective started to change. And I started to see this past life that I was living was nonsense,” he said. “I started to have a conscience.”
In 2023, after repeated failures to get his case overturned on appeal, some of Eagle’s friends got the attention of Baca and the California Innocence Project, which worked to bring the case before the conviction review unit. At the same time, Eagle said, he started exchanging letters with an ex-girlfriend from high school, a woman named Monica.
In July, the two squeezed next to each other on Baca’s couch at the lawyer’s Long Beach home, hands interlocked. They’ve since gotten married and are looking to move to Arizona, away from the city and county that nearly took everything away from Eagle.
There’s still a lot for Eagle to get used too — he’s never driven a car, the concept of Uber is still bizarre to him — but Monica says there’s one silver lining to the prison term Eagle never should have served. She wouldn’t have married the guy who was sent away all those years ago.
“He’s a whole new person from when he went in,” she said.
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel has ruled that President Trump cannot use an 18th century wartime law to speed the deportations of people his administration accuses of being in a Venezuelan gang. The decision blocking an administration priority is destined for a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two judges on a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in the ruling Tuesday, agreed with immigrant rights lawyers and lower court judges who argued the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was not intended to be used against gangs such as Tren de Aragua, which the Republican president had targeted in March.
Lee Gelernt, who argued the case for the ACLU, said the administration’s use of “a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the majority erred in second-guessing the president.
“The authority to conduct national security operations in defense of the United States and to remove terrorists from the United States rests solely with the President,” Jackson said. “We expect to be vindicated on the merits in this case.”
The administration deported people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador and argued that American courts could not order them freed.
In a deal announced in July, more than 250 of the deported migrants returned to Venezuela.
The Alien Enemies Act was only used three times before in U.S. history, all during declared wars — in the War of 1812 and the two world wars.
The administration unsuccessfully argued that courts cannot second-guess the president’s determination that Tren de Aragua was connected to Venezuela’s government and represented a danger to the United States, meriting use of the act.
In a 2-1 ruling, the judges said they granted the preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs because they “found no invasion or predatory incursion” in this case.
The decision bars deportations from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. In the majority were U.S. Circuit Judges Leslie Southwick, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who was nominated by Democratic President Biden. Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee, dissented.
The majority opinion said Trump’s allegations about Tren de Aragua did not meet the historical levels of national conflict that Congress intended for the act.
“A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” the judges wrote.
In a lengthy dissent, Oldham complained his two colleagues were second-guessing Trump’s conduct of foreign affairs and national security, realms where courts usually give the president great deference.
“The majority’s approach to this case is not only unprecedented — it is contrary to more than 200 years of precedent,” Oldham wrote.
The panel did grant the Trump administration one legal victory, finding the procedures it uses to advise detainees under the Alien Enemies Act of their legal rights were appropriate.
The ruling can be appealed to the full 5th Circuit or directly to the Supreme Court, which is likely to make the ultimate decision on the issue.
The Supreme Court has already gotten involved twice before in the tangled history of the Trump administration’s use of the act. In the initial weeks after Trump’s March declaration, the court ruled that the administration could deport people under the act, but unanimously found that those targeted needed to be given a reasonable chance to argue their case before judges in the areas where they were held.
Then, as the administration moved to rapidly deport more Venezuelans from Texas, the high court stepped in again with an unusual, post-midnight ruling that they couldn’t do so until the 5th Circuit decided whether the administration was providing adequate notice to the immigrants and could weigh in on the broader legal issues of the case. The high court has yet to address whether a gang can be cited as an alien enemy under the act.
Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Sept. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he ordered a “kinetic strike” on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States that he said killed nearly a dozen members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post referring to members of the infamous Venezuelan gang as “narcoterrorists.” The strike marks the Trump administration’s embrace of military force against drug trafficking, which was previously left to law enforcement. It is also the latest ratcheting up of hostility with Venezuela after Trump said the gang is controlled by the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.
The early morning strike killed 11 members of the gang while they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters, according to Trump. U.S. military personnel were not harmed, he wrote.
“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the strike by U.S. military forces in a post on X, writing that it occurred in the southern Caribbean.
Shortly into his second term, Trump designated the Tren de Aragua and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations,” concluding that their drug trafficking and violent activities are a destabilizing presence.
Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, on Friday acknowledged in a press briefing that the United States was building up naval forces in the Caribbean, saying it was to “combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, criminal cartels and these foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere.”
Maduro responded by placing troops on the border and calling on Venezuelans to resist an invasion by the United States, saying during a press conference Monday that the county is “facing the greatest threat our continent has seen in 100 years,” reported El Pais.
“If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle and a Republic in arms,” Maduro said, according to the newspaper.
Aug. 25 (UPI) — Eight alleged gang members have been arrested in break-ins of high-end items and firearms from at least 92 homes and businesses, the Los Angeles Police Department announced Monday.
The suspects, who have been arrested and charged, are believed to be members of the Rich Rollin Burglary Crew, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnellsaid at a news conference. They range in age from 20 to 47, police said.
Also, two other men were linked to the burglary crew but were already in custody on suspicion of an unrelated attempted murder, police said.
“These individuals represent the kind of repeat offenders we are targeting through our suppression strategies and their arrests underscore our progress in reducing burglaries and other crimes,” the chief told reporters.
McDonnell said they focused on West Los Angeles and near Los Angeles International Airport, though some crimes were in the San Fernando Valley, police said.
They sought high-end jewelry, purses, watches and wallets, as well as guns and suitcases, police say. The items were sold for cash, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
“They come in here, not because they need anything, but because of greed,” Hochman said. “They don’t want to use (the stolen items) for their own benefit, they are using that [to get] money.”
Some of the accused could face life in prison because they have one or two strikes against them, Hochman said.
Police said they are members of the Rollin’ 30s and 55 Neighborhood.
None of the burglaries are linked to a recent crime wave in Encino, and instead were from 2022, with most last year and this year.
At 5 a.m. Wednesday, search warrants were served at eight homes in Los Angeles, Hawthorn, Inglewood and Carson. Besides stolen high-end items and currency, police said they found 15 firearms, weapon magazines, burglary tools, narcotics, masks, cellphones and radios.
Police said they got a break in the burglary cases on Feb. 13 when three suspects in a van were arrested after a vehicle pursuit. The vehicle was recognized from two burglaries the day before, McDonnell said.
In April, police found items from a search warrant. Included were stolen credit cards and license plates, he said.
Mayor Karen Ross praised the “extraordinary work of our LAPD and our regional partners,” including Hawthorne and Inglewood police departments.
She said it was a “major win” for her city, and “we won’t stop doing whatever we need to do to combat crime.”
Police said some places may have been targeted because of postings on social media.
“You’re showing off Rolexes, fancy bags, fancy cars, this kind of stuff. You make yourself a target,” McDonnell said before the announced arrests during a meeting with the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association last week.
Also, McDonnell said upscale restaurant patrons may be targeted.
Homicides in Los Angeles are down 9% from the previous year.
The day after Eid al-Fitr, a festive period for Muslims, is usually quiet; a time for rest, reflection, and recovery for most tailors who had had sleepless nights to ensure people looked colourful during the celebrations. For Abubakar Ibrahim, this March, it became a day etched in trauma.
It began as a brawl between two boys from neighbouring communities, Tunga Sabon Titi and Maje, divided only by a narrow stretch of road in Minna, the capital of Niger State in North Central Nigeria. The brawl quickly escalated into a full-blown gang clash, drawing in allies and sympathisers from both sides.
Ibrahim, a tailor and student in his early twenties, was at home when the commotion began. “I was heading somewhere when I heard the rants ‘karya ne wallahi, Ba sulhu [It’s a lie, no reconciliation]’,” he recalled. “While all this was happening, vigilantes were trying to disperse the crowd as we stood and watched.”
Moments later, gunfire shattered the air. He never saw it coming; six pellets from a Dane gun tore into him. Two lodged near his clavicle, the rest in his lap. “I didn’t realise I was hit until someone drew my attention while we were running,” he told HumAngle. “Then I felt dizzy, my leg went numb, and I collapsed.”
Residents told HumAngle that Mada, a local vigilante, had been aiming at the gang when his bullet missed and struck Ibrahim, who had no part in the clash or any gang activity. He was simply trying to earn a living, yet became another innocent casualty in a pattern of violence that has become disturbingly familiar in Minna.
Tracing the origins
Investigations by HumAngle trace the roots of Minna’s gang violence to long-standing turf rivalries between youths in neighbourhoods in the mid-2000s, when loosely organised gangs, locally called Yan Daba, engaged in sporadic confrontations, largely confined to street-level disputes.
Over time, the scale and lethality of these conflicts grew. Neighbourhood rivalries now pit entire communities such as Limawa, Unguwan Daji, Bosso, Soje, Kpakungu, Barikin Sale, against each other. Festive periods, school closures, and political transitions frequently trigger violent episodes, often leaving deaths, injuries, and property destruction in their wake. Some sources within these communities said the violence sometimes happens as weekend fights over petty theft, insults, or territory.
These confrontations have also spilt into schools, with rivals asserting dominance through violence. Schools such as Zarumai Model in Bosso, Government Day Secondary School in Unguwan Daji, Father O’Connell Science College (formerly Government Secondary School), and Hill Top Model Schools have all witnessed inter-school violent gang clashes, sometimes ending in serious injuries or deaths.
HumAngle has previously documented the activities of a gang with the same name in northwestern Nigeria’s Kano, where they terrorised neighbourhoods, showing that this style of youth-driven violence is not confined to one city.
These gangs are usually armed with daggers, cutlasses, and sharp weapons like scissors, animal horns, and screwdrivers.
This violence is not confined to the past. In a pre-dawn sting operation in April, police officers in Niger State arrested 24 suspected criminals linked to thuggery and armed robbery in Maitumbi, a troubled suburb of Minna. The coordinated raid, led by the Anti-Thuggery Unit and backed by local police divisions and vigilantes, targeted crime hotspots like Angwan-Roka, Kwari-Berger, Flamingo, and Tudun Wada, following a surge in youth violence and gang activity, according to police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun.
Minna is the capital city of Niger State in North Central Nigeria. Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
In March, the state Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education shut down Government Day Secondary School, Bosso Road, and Father O’Connell Science College in Minna, after assessing ongoing conflicts between students and local youths, some posing as students.
Although many incidents go unreported, they continue to claim lives and property.
In April last year, a violent clash between rival gangs in the Maitumbi area left two dead, with shops, vehicles, and tricycles damaged. The police confirmed the arrest of six suspects connected to the incident and stated that efforts were underway to apprehend others involved.
Later in December, a 15-year-old boy, Saidu Ubu, was killed in another fight between rival groups from Gurgudu and Kwari-Berger. The altercation, which began as a minor dispute late at night, quickly escalated into a brutal fight that caused panic among residents. By the time police arrived, the attackers had fled.
More recently, police arrested 18-year-old Jamilu Abdullahi, known as Zabo, over alleged armed robbery, culpable homicide, and gang violence in several of the affected communities.
Caught in the fix
For residents like Ibrahim, these flare-ups are more than news headlines; they are life-altering. After he collapsed due to the gunshots, his brother rushed to the scene and took him to Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida Specialist Hospital, a nearby public medical facility.
But the ordeal was far from over.
When they arrived at the hospital, they were told that there were no doctors available to attend to him at the moment. “They only gave me some injections but didn’t attempt to remove the bullets,” Ibrahim recounted.
Four days later, still in pain, his family turned to a local hunter in nearby Wushishi known for removing Dane gun pellets. The hunter succeeded where the hospital had failed.
“I was unconscious when I arrived at the hospital,” Ibrahim said. “I only woke up there. But the bullets stayed in me for four days until they were removed by the local hunter.”
The recovery was slow and painful. Ibrahim missed his exams, adding academic loss to physical trauma. “It took me a while [over a month] to recover,” he said quietly.
The vigilante accused of shooting him was reportedly arrested, but Ibrahim has heard nothing since; no justice, no closure.
Residents who spoke to HumAngle expressed concerns over the lingering menace that has not only continued to affect their loved ones but has also left them worried about having to raise their children in such an environment.
Illustration: Akila Jibrin/HumAngle
“I do not want my child to grow up witnessing this violence and someday be influenced to partake in it. It will break my heart,” said Danlami Shittu, a designer whose shop is just metres away from where Ibrahim was shot. “Every festive period, we hold our breath. These boys do not just fight; they settle old scores. Yet those of us who are not involved still pay the price.”
The missing links
Aminu Muhammad, a consultant in peace and conflict management, said the roots of this crisis lie deep within the decay of societal values and systemic neglect and a defect in the state’s justice and security frameworks.
He identified poor parenting as a primary driver of youth delinquency in the city, noting that many parents in the city are disengaged from their children’s lives, unaware of where they live or who they associate with.
This parental neglect has created a vacuum filled by peer influence and street culture, pushing many youths toward gang affiliation. “You must first take care of your children before they become more acceptable in society,” he told HumAngle.
Beyond the home, Dr. Aminu, who is also a lecturer at the Abdullahi Kure University, Minna, revealed that lack of access to education and vocational training has left many young people idle and vulnerable. Those who cannot enrol in formal schools are rarely offered alternatives to learn trades or acquire skills that could make them self-reliant. This absence of opportunity often translates into frustration and a turn toward violence.
Dr. Aminu also points to the failure of security agencies and the justice system.
“When there are calls to security personnel during violent encounters, the response is often delayed. These delays allow attackers to escape and victims to retaliate, perpetuating a cycle of violence,” he added. “Even when arrests are made, the lack of stern punishment mechanisms undermines accountability. These guys are granted bail or discharged without much consequence. Influential persons and even government officials sometimes intervene to secure their release.”
To stem the tide of violence, the conflict management consultant suggested a multi-pronged approach: stronger parental involvement, public sensitisation through the National Orientation Agency, and a tougher security and judicial framework. Without this, he warns, Minna risks losing its identity as a peaceful city and its youth to the streets.
Bello Abdullahi, the state’s Commissioner for Homeland Security, did not respond to multiple calls and messages requesting official comments on the issue.
For Ibrahim, the physical wounds have healed, and he has returned to his tailoring, but the emotional scars will outlast the headlines. And for other casualties of this violence, their stories never even make it that far.
“I want peace. Not just for me, but for all of us,” Ibrahim said.
Government says move aims to boost ‘fight against insecurity’ as armed gangs continue to carry out attacks across the country.
Haiti’s government has announced a three-month state of emergency in several parts of the country as it battles surging gang violence.
The measure will cover the West, Centre and Artibonite departments, the latter of which is known as Haiti’s “rice basket” and has experienced an increase in attacks by armed groups in recent months.
In a statement on Saturday, the government said the state of emergency would allow the Haitian authorities to “continue the fight against insecurity and respond to the agricultural and food crisis”.
“Insecurity has negative effect both on the lives of citizens and on the country’s different sectors of activity. Given the scale of this crisis, it is imperative to decree a major mobilisation of the state’s resources and institutional means to address it,” it said.
Haiti has reeled from years of violence as powerful armed groups, often with ties to the country’s political and business leaders, have vied for influence and control of territory.
But the situation worsened dramatically after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, which created a power vacuum.
Nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced across the country, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in June, while the United Nations estimates that 4,864 people were killed from October 2024 to June of this year.
Efforts to stem the deadly gang attacks, including the deployment of a UN-backed, Kenya-led police mission, have so far failed to restore stability.
While much of the focus has been on Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where up to 90 percent of the city is under the control of armed groups, the violence has also been spreading to other parts of the country.
Between October 2024 and the end of June, more than 1,000 Haitians were killed and 620 were kidnapped in the Artibonite and Centre departments, according to the UN’s human rights office.
In late April, dozens of people waded and swam across the Artibonite River, which cuts through the region, in a desperate attempt to flee the gangs.
Meanwhile, the government on Friday appointed Andre Jonas Vladimir Paraison as interim director of Haiti’s National Police, which has been working with Kenyan police officers leading the UN-backed mission to help quell the violence.
“We, the police, will not sleep,” Paraison said during his inauguration ceremony. “We will provide security across every corner of the country.”
Paraison previously served as head of security of Haiti’s National Palace and was on duty as a police officer when Moise was killed at his private residence in July 2021.
He replaced Normil Rameau, whose tenure of just more than a year was marked by tensions with a faction of the Transitional Presidential Council, notably Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime.
Rameau had repeatedly warned about the police force’s severe underfunding.
The change comes as Laurent Saint-Cyr, a wealthy businessman, also took over this week as president of the Transitional Presidential Council, which is charged with holding elections by February 2026.
On a crisp spring morning in Brampton town of Canada’s Ontario province in May, Harjit Singh Dhadda meticulously tied his traditional sage green turban as he got ready for work.
He embraced his daughter Gurleen before leaving for his trucking insurance office in Mississauga near Toronto’s bustling Pearson international airport.
It was the last time Gurleen saw her 51-year-old father alive. As Harjit reached the car park of his office on May 14, two men confronted him. One of them pumped multiple bullets into Harjit’s body before fleeing in a stolen 2018 Dodge Challenger.
Harjit later died of his injuries at a local hospital.
Hours later, two men claimed responsibility for Harjit’s murder in a Facebook post, calling themselves members of a criminal gang led by Lawrence Bishnoi, an Indian national currently imprisoned at Sabarmati Central Jail in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
Barely a month after Harjit’s murder, a businessman in Surrey, British Columbia, and another in Harjit’s town, Brampton – both of Indian origin – were shot. Local authorities say the murders represent a disturbing expansion of criminal networks rooted in India into Canadian territory – led by India’s most notorious organised crime syndicate, the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
Now, a growing number of political leaders in Canada want the federal government to act, demanding that the Bishnoi gang be declared a terrorist organisation.
Lawrence Bishnoi amid heavy police security while coming out of the Amritsar court complex on October 31, 2022, in Amritsar, India [Sameer Sehgal/Hindustan Times via Getty Images]
‘Public safety must come first’
“The terrorist designation enables police to use the necessary tools to investigate and bring this activity to an end. It gives police significant investigative tools,” British Columbia’s Premier David Eby said in a statement on June 17.
In July, his Alberta counterpart, Daniel Smith, echoed that call. “Formally designating the Bishnoi Gang as a terrorist entity will unlock critical powers, allowing law enforcement agencies to access the necessary tools and resources needed to disrupt operations and protect our people effectively,” Smith said in a Facebook post on July 14.
Alberta’s Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said there was credible intelligence indicating the involvement of the Bishnoi gang in extortion and targeted violence in the province and elsewhere in Canada. “The gang originates from India, and ongoing investigations are examining why they are specifically targeting the South Asian community,” Ellis told Al Jazeera in a statement.
Jody Toor, a lawmaker from the Conservative Party in the British Columbia Legislature, and Brampton city Mayor Patrick Brown have also supported designating the Bishnoi gang a terrorist organisation.
The Canadian federal government has suggested that it is examining these demands. “There is precedent for criminal organisations being designated this way, and I fully support a thorough, evidence-based approach,” Secretary of State for Combating Crime Ruby Sahota told Al Jazeera. “Public safety must come first, and if a group meets the criteria, it should be listed without delay.”
Amarnath Amarasingam, a researcher on extremism and an associate professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, said that listing the Bishnoi group as a terrorist organisation would significantly broaden law enforcement powers. It would allow law enforcement agencies to pursue terrorism-related charges, criminalise recruitment or financial support for the group, seize and freeze assets, and give them greater surveillance powers.
Canadian officials had, in 2024, accused the Bishnoi gang of acting at the behest of Indian intelligence agencies to target critics of the Indian government on their soil.
“A terrorist designation would send a strong signal to India and other allies that Canada is taking the transnational threat seriously. It would also increase information-sharing opportunities with global partners,” Amarasingam told Al Jazeera. Those partners include the Five Eyes alliance, which also includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
A terrorist tag could strengthen Canadian requests for arrests through organisations like Interpol, too, he added. It could trigger sanctions against the gang, allowing the government to institute travel bans, visa denials and financial blacklisting of associates and funders.
But he warned that listing the group as a terrorist organisation could have its downsides. While clearly involved in criminal activity, the Bishnoi gang doesn’t appear to have political, religious or ideological objectives – traditionally the bar that listings have needed – he said.
“Using terrorism powers to target a group that lacks this motivation could set a dangerous precedent, weakening the credibility of Canada’s listing process and lowering the threshold, opening the door for future political misuse,” Amarasingam said.
A member of a Sikh organisation holds a placard displaying Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Amritsar on September 22, 2023. Nijjar’s killing in Surrey, British Columbia, first brought the Bishnoi gang to global prominence, with Canadian officials claiming it worked with the Indian government to kill overseas dissidents [Narinder Nanu/ AFP]
An Indian intelligence asset?
But the Bishnoi gang is no ordinary criminal syndicate, according to Canadian officials.
In recent years, the Indian government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced allegations that its intelligence agents have been attempting to carry out targeted assassinations of Sikh separatists overseas, especially in Canada and the US.
Canada is home to about 770,000 Sikhs, who make up 2.1 percent of its population – their largest number outside India. Many of them moved to Canada in the 1980s when Indian forces launched a violent crackdown on alleged supporters of a movement demanding a separate Sikh homeland, Khalistan, to be carved out of the northern Indian state of Punjab. India describes such separatists as “terrorists”.
It was the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, outside a Sikh temple on June 18, 2023, that pushed Bishnoi and his gang to the centre of a bitter diplomatic war between Canada and India.
In October that year, then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Indian diplomats were collecting intelligence on “Canadians who are opponents or in disagreement with the Modi government” and that the intelligence reached “criminal organisations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang to then result in violence against Canadians on the ground”.
Trudeau and his government directly blamed the Modi government for Nijjar’s assassination. Nijjar was a prominent supporter of a Khalistani state.
But New Delhi, while rejecting these allegations, has insisted that it has sent more than two dozen extradition requests to Canada, seeking Ottawa’s help in getting Bishnoi gang members back to India to face “due legal action”. And it says that Canada hasn’t acted on its request.
As Canada and India trade allegations, many in the Indian origin community are dealing with mounting insecurity. Could they be the next target of the Bishnoi group?
Police photos of Aman and Digvijay, two of the men arrested for Harjit’s murder [Courtesy of Peel Police, British Columbia]
‘Threatening call’
Over three decades, Harjit, a Sikh entrepreneur, had built a life that resembled a Canadian immigrant success story.
He ran a company called G&G Trucking Solutions – a consultancy firm that advised its clients on how to start and run a trucking company, and was a commercial insurance broker as well. His business expanded to Calgary and Edmonton, in Alberta, and he had nearly 30 employees.
Then, on December 10, 2023 – his birthday – he received a phone call from someone who identified himself as an Indian gangster, his daughter Gurleen recalled. The caller demanded 500,000 Canadian dollars ($361,000) in extortion money and threatened dire consequences if the money wasn’t paid. Harjit refused to pay and informed law enforcement authorities.
“He told me about the threatening call,” Gurleen, a 24-year-old business student at York University in Toronto, told Al Jazeera.
After the threatening call, Harjit changed his daily routine and began operating his business mostly from home. But eventually, he resumed meetings with clients in his office, his daughter said.
On May 14, Gurleen received a call from her father’s office. He had been shot.
“I rushed to the office. There were bullet casings scattered everywhere. Police had cordoned off the entire area. My father was rushed to the hospital, he later succumbed to his injuries,” said Gurleen.
Police have arrested three men – identified as Aman and Digvijay, both 21, and Shaheel, 22 – as suspects. But Harjit’s family says law enforcement have only scratched the tip of the iceberg.
“Police merely arrested three kids. But who orchestrated this? I wanted to know the man behind my father’s killing,” said Gurleen.
Meanwhile, two men – Rohit Godara and Goldy Brar – who called themselves members of the Bishnoi gang, posted on Facebook that they had killed Harjit. They claimed that Harjit had helped a rival gang and was involved in a murder in India – allegations that the family denies. Police have not confirmed whether they believe the Bishnoi gang was behind Harjit’s killing.
On June 12, 2025, another Indian-origin businessman, Satwinder Sharma, was shot in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian origin gangster, Jiwan Fauji claimed responsibility for the murder. Indian police have labelled Fauji an alleged member of Babbar Khalsa International, a banned Khalistani outfit. Sharma’s family did not respond to an Al Jazeera request for an interview.
A little over a week later, on June 20, Brampton-based businessman, MP Dhanoa, was shot down. Again, Godara and Brar claimed responsibility on behalf of the Bishnoi gang in a Facebook post.
Harjit, Sharma and Dhanoa have no known links to the Khalistani movement.
But gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi, apart from his crime network, has presented himself as a Hindu nationalist in interviews from jail, and some supporters of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have spoken of how the gangster had scared Khalistan supporters.
Policemen escort jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi as they bring him before the Patiala House Court in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, April 18, 2023 [Dinesh Joshi/AP Photo]
Rise to notoriety
Indian police officials say that Bishnoi, 32, controls more than 700 sharpshooters who carry out murders and extortion globally. And he does this from behind bars, shuffling between various prisons for nearly a decade now.
Bishnoi and Brar gained wide notoriety in May 2022, when the gang murdered prominent Punjabi singer and rapper Sidhu Moosewala in Punjab. Police said Brar allegedly orchestrated Moosewala’s killing from Canada.
Ajai Sahni, executive director of the New Delhi Institute for Conflict Management, said establishing a command chain – and even defining what constitutes a gang – isn’t easy with transnational groups. “Any incident executed in India can be claimed by Bishnoi gang members in Canada or in the US, and vice versa through unverifiable social media accounts,” Sahni told Al Jazeera. He suggested that in such cases, even surveillance records against suspects might not suffice as strong enough legal evidence.
Sanjay Verma, former Indian high commissioner – Canada expelled him after Trudeau’s allegations in 2023 – said last year that India had shared information about Brar’s presence in Canada with Ottawa.
In 2024, Bishnoi’s gang claimed responsibility for the murder of a 66-year-old politician, Baba Siddique, in Mumbai’s Bandra area. Two members of the Bishnoi gang were also arrested for firing outside the Mumbai residence of popular Bollywood actor, Salman Khan.
Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, deputy inspector general of the Anti-Gangster Task Force in India’s Punjab, advocates for a joint data-sharing mechanism between countries affected by criminal gangs, like Bishnoi.
“If we have any evidence, it should be promptly shared with our Canadian counterparts, who must investigate it without delay and keep us informed. Crime is crime – no matter where it occurs in the world,” Chauhan told Al Jazeera. “There is a very thin line between organised crime and terrorism. These networks can be exploited for terrorist activities at any time, anywhere in the world.”
The Bishnoi group has also claimed responsibility for attacks on the homes of two prominent Punjabi singers, AP Dhillon and Gippy Grewal, in British Columbia, over the past two years, as its empire of fear has expanded from Mumbai to Mississauga. And on August 7, an alleged Bishnoi gang member claimed responsibility for gunshots fired at a cafe in British Columbia owned by Indian comedian Kapil Sharma.
A banner with the image of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple, site of his June 2023 killing, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, September 20, 2023 [Chris Helgren/Reuters]
‘They could execute me’
Satish Kumar, a 73-year-old businessman in Surrey, British Columbia who migrated to Canada 45 years ago, says he lives in constant fear.
Kumar is the president of Lakshmi Narayan Temple in Surrey, a prominent religious site for Hindus.
Earlier this year, he received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Godara, the Bishnoi associate who – along with Brar – claimed responsibility for the killings of Harjit and Dhanoa. “He demanded two million Canadian dollars [$1.45m] as extortion,” Kumar told Al Jazeera, adding that he blocked the number.
Later he reported the call to the police, after receiving threats from other numbers. “They sent multiple voice notes on May 28, 2025, threatening to kill me and harm my business premises, but I blocked the numbers”, said Kumar.
Then, the threats turned to bullets.
On June 7, men allegedly belonging to the Bishnoi gang fired shots at various buildings owned by Kumar. “The gang members filmed the shootings at three of my premises and sent me the footage, but I refused to pay extortion,” he said.
Kumar said he was frustrated with what he called an “inadequate response” by the Canadian police. “They [gangsters] could execute me at any moment. I still receive calls from them. My family is under constant stress,” he told Al Jazeera.
As attacks escalate, the South Asian community in Surrey and Brampton has been campaigning for more safety on social media, uploading videos of various shootings in the two cities. Since 2003, gang-related homicides in British Columbia have climbed from 21 percent to 46 percent of all homicides in 2023, according to the provincial police.
“During work, I can momentarily forget about these gangs,” Kumar said. “But once I finish my work, then it’s there – this fear.”
THIS is the shocking moment a Virgin Atlantic passenger hurled abuse at a hostess he threatened to “gang rape and set alight”
Disturbing footage shows Salman Iftikhar, 37, tell stewardess Angie Walsh she would be attacked in her hotel after landing.
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Salman Iftikhar, 37, was filmed threatening a Virgin Atlantic stewardessCredit: Central News
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The passenger said crew member Angie Walsh would be gang rapedCredit: Central News
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Angie (left) was supported by sister Claire Walsh (right) at Birmingham Crown CourtCredit: Central News
He spouted his vile rant after downing champagne on an eight-hour flight from London Heathrow to Lahore on February 7 2023.
Iftikhar said Ms Walsh would be taken from her hotel room, gang raped and set on fire.
Another passenger, who filmed the shocking scenes, can be heard saying “holy s–t”.
Iftikhar repeatedly accuses Ms Walsh of being a racist and says: “You called me a p-ki in front of everybody.”
The 37-year-old had been flying with his wife and three children, Isleworth Crown Court heard.
Prosecuting, Abdul Kapadia, said: “During the defendant’s first meal service, the defendant was seen helping himself to ice, leaning over the bar he was drinking at, and taking ice with his hands.
“When told to stop, the defendant became irate, and started to film cabin crew with his phone, telling them: ‘Do not tell me what to do you b***h.
“When asked by the cabin crew to return to his seat, he then said: ‘Don’t tell me what to do you racist f***ing b***h. I know where you are from in Cardiff.”
Staff alerted the pilot and the seat belt signs were turned on, which only aggravated Iftikhar more.
He continued to call Ms Walsh a “f***ing b***h” before his escalating behaviour sparked a possible flight diversion to Turkey.
Moment Scots Ryanair passenger hauled off flight by cops for ‘VAPING’ on plane
“The defendant was informed of this possible diversion, to which he replied: ‘I don’t care. F–it, go to Turkey. I have contacts,” the prosecutor told the court.
“The defendant then sat down, but his aggressive behaviour continued.
“His wife was ashamed. His three children were also on-board, and other crew members were called to assist, but the defendant continued shouting and swearing.
“He was slurring his words, with his voice raised.
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The father-of-three was with his wife and kids when he unleashed his vile rantsCredit: Central News
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Iftikhar admitted making threats to kill and racially aggravated harassmentCredit: Central News
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He told flight attendants he would blow up their floor of the crew hotelCredit: Central News
“He shouted at the cabin crew: ‘Do you know who I am?’
“The defendant’s wife went to the food bar and tried to talk to cabin crew, but the defendant pushed his wife away, and shouted at her not to talk to crew.”
He grabbed one flight attendant, called Tommy Merchant, and threatened him with a fight.
‘YOU WILL BE DEAD’
The out-of-control passenger then told cabin crew he would blow up the floor of their hotel.
“The defendant knew the specific hotel, but also the hotel room numbers, and threatened the cabin crew with this,” Mr Kapadia told the court.
“He told Ms Walsh: ‘You will be dead on the floor of your hotel’.
“Iftikhar shouted at Ms Walsh and said: ‘The white sheep sh**ging b***h will be dead. The floor of your hotel will be blown up and it will disappear.
“He told Ms Walsh: ‘You will be dragged by your hair from your room and gang raped and set on fire’.”
His violent rant unfolded in front of his wife and three young children – who were brought to tears.
Iftikhar was arrested at his £900,000 detached home in Iver, Bucks, on March 16, 2024.
‘IT HAS BROKEN ME’
In an impact statement, Ms Walsh said she was forced to take off 14 months and the altercation “changed my life enormously”.
“I can’t quite believe that one passenger has had this much of an impact on my, my job, my career and my life,” she said.
“I am a strong brave, happy stewardess, and loved my job. I am well known within the company.
“But I had to take 14 months off work.
“I have been flying with Virgin Atlantic for 37 years. I was working when all flights were grounded on 9/11, and I’ve even flown into a warzone. But this incident has broken me.
“But I don’t feel strong enough anymore. I was abused for eight hours and 15 mins. It has broken me. It was a very personal attack.
“I was doing everything in my power to protect passengers and the crew from him. I felt exposed and vulnerable, especially as we were 39,000 feet in the air. There was nowhere for me to go.
“There was one moment where I felt I could not cope. I went into the cockpit and had a meltdown. I said to the captain I don’t know what to do.
“Even the threat of diverting the plane to Turkey or Baku, Azerbaijan, had no effect.
“I was traumatised by the threat of being gang raped.
“Never in my entire career flying for 37 years have I not been sure what to do.
“I have had the best career in the world for 37 years. But he has taken that away from me.”
He told Ms Walsh: ‘You will be dead on the floor of your hotel’
Prosecutor Abdul Kapadia
Iftikhar, of Iver, Bucks, admitted making threats to kill and racially aggravated harassment, in relation to Ms Walsh.
He was cleared of assault by beating and threats to kill in relation to Mr Merchant.
Ben Walker-Nolan, defending, said Iftikhar was suffering from “amnesia blood loss” at the time.
Mr Walker-Nolan added: “Although there were over 100 incidents over the course of eight hours, the most serious, including threats to kill, were limited.
“The defendant has buried his head in the sand for a long period, and expressed regret.
“He has a long standing drug and alcohol problem which he has not addressed for many years.
“He is a successful businessman who employs a lot of people.”
THUG JAILED
Iftikhar has six previous convictions arising from 15 offences, including common assault in 2004 and drink driving in 2008 and failing to stop and possession of cannabis in 2021.
Judge Ms Recorder Annabel Darlow KC said: “Your threats to kill were made in the presence of children, specifically your three young children.
“These were threats made with significant violence.
“Your children had to be comforted by cabin crew staff while you made those threats.
“Ms Walsh has given up a job which she has loved for 14 months, but thankfully has now returned to work.
“This was a sustained incident which involved repeated racist abuse to Ms Walsh.
“You have a lengthy and appalling record of misconduct. You have not addressed the underlying cause of this for many years, that is your drug and alcohol problem.
“Given your lifestyle and your ability to earn money, your harm and risk has not moved.
“This was an appalling incident which has caused long lasting and devastating consequences.”
Iftikhar cried in the dock as he was jailed for 15 months.
His LinkedIn profile stated that he was the director and founder of recruitment firm Staffing Match.
Virgin Atlantic was contacted for comment.
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He cried as a judge sentenced him to 15 monthsCredit: Central News
AN XXL Labubu doll worth more than £100,000 was uncovered by Hong Kong police during a major raid on Tuesday morning.
The gang, suspected of laundering £4 billion, had been under surveillance for two and a half years – but police never expected to find a giant plush toy among their illicit haul.
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The assets seized by police include a giant Labubu dollCredit: Hong Kong Police / X
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Hong Kong police have been monitoring the gang for the past two and a half yearsCredit: Hong Kong Police / X
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Hong Kong police have arrested 82 people in a citywide anti-triad raidCredit: Hong Kong Police / X
According to the South Morning China Post, the seized goods belonged to the Triad syndicate – one of the oldest and most notorious criminal organisations in China.
Hong Kong police launched a large-scale raid on Tuesday, writing in a post on X: “When the time was ripe – the HKPF mounted the territory-wide anti-triad ‘Operation HIDDENARROW’ on July 29, 2025.”
The force seized €780,000 in cash, 11,000 bottles of wine, luxury watches, gold and a 5ft2 Labubu doll.
The figure is said to be rare – one of fifteen of its kind in the world.
A similar piece went under the hammer in Beijing in June for around £113,000.
As many as 82 suspects were reportedly arrested during the operation – 55 men and 27 women, ranging in age from 19 to 78.
Among them was the alleged 44-year-old ringleader.
He is suspected of running the operation and involving friends and family in the money laundering scheme.
Police added on X: “The ringleader manipulated his family & friends as well as the members of his gang into laundering the crime proceeds via calculated means.”
They listed this means as “continuously laundering the illicit funds via a trust company” and “committing #LoanFraud – using some seemingly lawful import trades as fronts.”
Dramatic moment crowds join massive queue to grab viral Labubu dolls as latest doll craze sweeps across the world
The gang’s funds came from prostitution, drug trafficking and illegal gambling, according to police.
Police said they froze assets worth around £115 million.
It’s still unclear whether Triad was banking on a rise in the Labubu doll’s value, were fans of the character or whether the toy might be a fake.
Labubus have taken the internet by storm – with Chinese toymaker Pop Mart’s valuation skyrocketing to £31.6bn.
The cult collectable dollshave been spotted dangling from the designer bags of Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and David Beckham.
What is the Labubu doll craze?
LABUBU is a brand of plushies designed by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung.
The brand made its debut in 2015, but skyrocketed in global popularity after hitting Pop Mart shelves in 2019.
Pop Mart is a Chinese toy retailer, known for its collectable designer models that are often sold in a blind box format.
The company has a stock market value of over £31.6bn.
After mammoth success overseas, the Labubu craze has made its way to the UK.
The first three months of 2025 were wildly successful for the brand, with Brits searching high and low to nab one of the quirky figurines.
In June, Labubu sales in the US went up by 5,000% compared to the year before, according to estimates from equity research firm M Science.
But Labubu’s popularity has led to a rise in counterfeits – sometimes referred to as Lafufu dolls.
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Hong Kong police have arrested 82 people in a citywide anti-triad operationCredit: Hong Kong Police / X
![Police photos of Aman and Digvijay, two of the men arrested for Harjit's murder [Courtesy of Peel Police, British Columbia]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Aman-and-Digvijay-1754617866.png)
