NEW DELHI: The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has busted an ISI-China-Canada linked international drug cartel and arrested a notorious Indo-Canadian gangster, Opinder Singh Sian aka Thanos, running a global fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking ring from British Columbia.According to court documents reviewed by TOI, Sian was arrested in Arizona on June 27 after his role in smuggling methamphetamine to Australia and chemicals for fentanyl into the US via Canada was established. The investigation, which kicked off in 2022, and a recently unsealed affidavit in a US court, has revealed that Sian, had operational ties with chemical suppliers linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) besides the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.The DEA had mounted an undercover operation to trap Sian after his dubious ties came to fore in 2021-2022 in the aftermath of a preliminary inquiry conducted regarding a tip from a Turkish intelligence agency. Singh was at the time a known senior member of the notorious ISI-backed ‘Brothers Keepers’ gang which mostly has foot soldiers from Punjab in India, many of whom are Canadian citizens. The gang, which has lent its support to the cause of so-called Khalistan on many occasions, was also seen active in commemorations rallies in support of Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar and others, sources said.According to Canadian police, the group deals in bulk trafficking of cocaine, MDMA, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine besides arms trafficking, murder, extortion and armed robbery. In his early days, Sian was wounded in a shooting in Aug 2008 that left his friend Gurpreet Sidhu dead and survived another bid on his life in May 2011, marking his rapid rise in Canada’s underworld. The now-released court documents state that Sian had arranged for a meeting between a confidential US undercover source, known as “Queen”, and a Chinese cartel man named Peter Peng Zhou in Vancouver in 2023. Zhou, ran a trucking company with an Indo-Canadian associate, revealed that he could “receive fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into Vancouver and “send 100 kilos of chemicals per month to Los Angeles” using his trucking company.Sian and Queen, the DEA said, held multiple meetings and were in contact through chat application Threema to coordinate multiple deliveries. Specifically, Sian made four drops of methamphetamine (over 500 pounds) in southern California before the DEA moved for his arrest. The DEA agents were subsequently able to identify multiple characters involved in the network, which ranged from Turkey to Dubai. Sian, the DEA submitted, was also found linked to the notorious Kinahan crime family which is linked to Hezbollah.
