Fentanyl terror: There's a Khalistan-China connection

Time of India

17-07-2025

While it's a known fact that
Khalistan
is a geopolitical project of Pakistan which has been arming and harbouring
Khalistani terrorists
for decades in India and other countries such as Canada, Australia, the UK and the US, a China link is also emerging in this plot to break India. That link is Fentanyl, an opioid drug which has become a major cause of death in the US. Right after his swearing-in in February, US President
Donald Trump
had declared eight Latin American drug cartels as terrorist organisations, which included the
Sinaloa cartel
. The terror designation enables possible US military action in the region against these cartels. Trump also imposed tariffs on China and Canada for smuggling of
fentanyl
into the US.
In recent years, the nexus between Khalistanis and Latin-American drug cartels, especially in Canada and the US, has strengthened, but now China is also getting into the picture. A recent arrest by the
US Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) in Arizona has revealed a Chinese-Khalistani connection.
The China link of
Opinder Singh Sian
aka Thanos
The DEA has busted an ISI-China-Canada 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 in Canada, TOI has reported. 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.
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The investigation, which kicked off in 2022, and a recently unsealed affidavit in a US court, have 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 Khalistan on many occasions, was also seen active in commemoration rallies in support of Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar of Babbar Khalsa International and others, sources told TOI. 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.
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.
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Agencies
Opinder Singh Sian aka Thanos
The emerging China-Khalistan links
While there is no substantial known cooperation between China and Khalistani terrorists, many reports have revealed that China has been trying to promote Khalistan separatism in recent years.
During the India-China military standoff in Ladakh in 2020, the Sikhs For Justice, a US-based separatist Sikh body designated as a terror group by India, approached Beijing to support its secessionist campaign. SFJ's Gurpatwant Singh Pannun shot off a letter to Chinese President
Xi Jinping
, justifying China's position against India and extending support of pro-Khalistani Sikhs.
"We consider China's counter military action against India as legitimate and justified to protect its territorial integrity under international laws," Pannun wrote to Xi. He also urged the Chinese president to take up before the UN Security Council the issue of Sikh right to "self determination and secession" of Punjab from India through referendum. In the letter, Pannun also said that a delegation of SFJ's referendum campaigners would visit Beijing.
A few months before, in 2019, an intelligence report prepared by security agencies, said that Pannun had also written a letter to Yao Jing, then ambassador of China to Pakistan, informing him about alleged role of an Indian intelligence agency in attack on Chinese consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2018, TOI had reported. Last year, Pannu said in a video, addressing Chinese President Xi, that 'now is the time to order the Chinese army to take Arunachal Pradesh back' while claiming that 'Arunachal Pradesh is the territory of China'.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, had revealed last year that a network in China targeted the Sikh community worldwide with fictitious posts and manipulated images about the 'Khalistan independence movement'. 'These groups appeared to have created a fictitious activist movement called 'Operation K', which called for pro-Sikh protests," Meta said in its report.
India had snubbed China last year for its comments on the alleged plot to assassinate Pannun for which the US agencies had arrested one Nikhil Gupta who claimed he was paid by an Indian official to kill Pannun. Responding to China's call for observance of 'international law' in the Pannun case, the Ministry Of External Affairs said, 'India and the US, as two countries adhering to the rule of law, are capable of dealing with any issues between them. There is no role for speculative comments and gratuitous advice by unrelated third parties.'
(With TOI inputs)