New Delhi: Lodged in a prison in India’s Northeast, the gangster sent a text message to a man in the United States on 23 February. “Whole load got caught,” it read. The text did not end there. “…tracker was in your bricks si*********er, you fu**ed up everything,” the gangster wrote, giving an earful to the recipient.
The gangster in this exchange, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was Jaggu Bhagwanpuria. And the recipient, an American he believed to be a member of a criminal syndicate who was in fact, a confidential informant (CI).
In the week leading up to the day he sent that text message, Bhagwanpuria had been coordinating the movement of a shipment of what he believed was 20 kg of cocaine. The fee agreed upon was USD 1,600 per kg.
His communication was intercepted and reproduced by the FBI in its indictment against Bhagwanpuria and his criminal syndicate, unsealed Wednesday. Apart from establishing the scope of Bhagwanpuria’s syndicate in the US, communication intercepted by the FBI also established that the gangster’s preventive detention by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and subsequent relocation to Assam’s Silchar Central Jail did little to deter the syndicate.
Bhagwanpuria continued to coordinate with his operatives based abroad for the movement of drug consignments, including between the US and Canada, as late as February this year, according to the FBI.
A high-profile criminal from the border district of Gurdaspur, Bhagwanpuria was shifted from Bathinda jail in Punjab to Silchar Central Jail in March last year by the NCB. “His established linkages with international operatives in Canada, the USA, and Pakistan warranted his relocation to disrupt the ecosystem facilitating continued criminal activity,” an NCB spokesperson had said at the time.
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Vancouver-bound contraband
In the indictment unsealed Wednesday, the FBI documented that Bhagwanpuria had agreed to coordinate the movement of a consignment of cocaine from a US-based individual, whom he believed was a criminal syndicate member.
“On February 16, 2026, defendant BHAGWANPURIA agreed to coordinate the collection of approximately 20 kilograms of cocaine from CI-1 and the placement of that cocaine aboard a vehicle transporting approximately 163 kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Canada for a price of $1,600 per kilogram,” the FBI alleged in the indictment.
It went on to add that Bhagwanpuria, as part of the plan, allegedly passed on the number of the coordinator and the serial number of a bill for coordination.
The consignment was delivered by the individual, a confidential informant, and accepted by members of Bhagwanpuria’s syndicate, the FBI alleged.
“On February 20, 2026, defendant SAHIBDEEP SINGH communicated to CI-1, in Punjabi, ‘boss told me that load will reach day after tomorrow’,” the FBI further alleged, referring to a member of the Bhagwanpuria syndicate, also charged by the agency.
As Bhagwanpuria assured the confidential informant, the 20 kg “sham consignment of cocaine” was being transported to Vancouver by two members of his syndicate when it was intercepted on California State Route 99 by US authorities with the help of trackers the confidential informant had placed.
By 23 February, Bhagwanpuria had realised that he and members of his syndicate had been played. Miffed, the gangster sent the expletive text message to the confidential informant, intercepted and reproduced verbatim in the indictment.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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