Russell Peters jokes that the only thing the desi accent is good for is cutting tension, while Vikrum Sequeira has decoded how the desi head wiggle signals affability. Indeed, you can usually count on desis to be friendly and amiable.
So when a certain Francis Devandra Raj dug a tunnel from Canada to the U.S., it was purely to promote cross-border comity. The three-by-five tunnel was fortified with rebar and concrete, lit and ventilated. In fact, this undercover brother’s purposes were so peaceful that he was using the tunnel to send serene B.C. bud into the grateful arms of American stoners everywhere.
I just can’t see why the U.S. government doesn’t agree 😉 They arrested Raj and two buddies from Surrey, B.C. yesterday on charges of drug smuggling. But one thing remains the same, desis’ pioneering nature. The tunnel is the very first cross-border subterranean passage between Canada and the U.S ever known to exist.
Federal agents have shut down an elaborate, 360-foot drug-smuggling tunnel dug underneath the U.S.-Canadian border — the first such passageway discovered along the nation’s northern edge… The tunnel ran from a quonset hut on the Canadian side and ended under the living room of a home on the U.S. side, 300 feet from the border. Built with lumber, concrete and metal reinforcing bars, it was equipped with lights and ventilation, and ran underneath a highway…Francis Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34; and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, of Surrey, British Columbia, were arrested Wednesday… Raj owns the property under the quonset hut. [Link]
The smugglers were apparently religious. I’d give anything to know which saints were found inside the tunnel — Bob Marley? Lakshmi, goddess of wealth? Or, more appropriately for a tunnel, Ganeshji, remover of obstacles?
That tunnel was 3 feet wide and 5 feet high with a concrete floor. It had wood-beam supports, fiberglass walls, ventilation, video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside. [Link]
The police used some pretty high-tech methods to find the tunnel. But really, all they had to do was look for a bunch of dudes with red eyes giggling hysterically.
Investigators used a machine that can “see” underground, a video-equipped robot, a drug-sniffing dog and an air horn to find it. [Link]
All joking aside, the lucrative pot trade has fueled a boom in violent crime among Punjabi gangs in Vancouver (thanks, DesiDancer):
Young Indo-Canadian and South Asian deceased men dominate police files in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia like no other ethnic groups. And the province is setting up a special police task force following the deaths of 90 men in extreme gang violence since 1992…A typical case is that of Saranjit Gary Rai, who was 22 in 2001 when he was “shot to death, execution-style, by a single gunman in a hair salon,” Vancouver police said. Another is Robby Kandola, 31, “a well-known underworld figure in the Indo-Canadian community,” who died in a 2002 drive-by shooting outside his highrise apartment in the upscale city centre, police said. [Link]
In the past 13 years, police have reported 76 young men killed in the Vancouver area in gang-related violence… “They are Indo-Canadians killing Indo-Canadians,” said Kash Heed, commanding officer of the 3rd Police District in Vancouver. “Seventy-six murders . . . mainly within one ethnic group. The cycle of violence, we’ve not cracked it yet…”
In Blaine, Wash., Joe Giuliano, assistant chief at the local U.S. Border Patrol office, said 23 Canadian smugglers have been arrested on the U.S. side of the border this year. “Virtually all marijuana smuggling in the past fiscal year is either directly or indirectly tied back to the Indo-Canadian community,” Giuliano said… [Link]
… Vancouver has been caught in the grip of a gangland war that reads like the script for one of the Godfather movies or The Untouchables… One was shot dead in rush-hour traffic, another at his friend’s wedding. The groom was injured too: collateral damage. Another was killed in plain view of 300 people on the floor of a crowded nightclub. No witnesses…
… the gang war has been the dark accompaniment of a success story that reached its peak in this new century when Ujjal Dosanjh became the first Indo-Canadian premier in our history… Police have been stymied by what has been called “a wall of silence” around the close-knit community. [Link]
The gang members involved are generally not poor:
The authorities blame drug deals gone bad and local turf wars, mostly involving well-to-do young people of Indian descent… The gang members are often from well-off families, local leaders and officials said. “Unlike in other countries, people involved in the gang activity here are not the poor or disadvantaged,” said Wallace T. Oppal, a justice of the Court of Appeal of British Columbia.“For the most part, kids involved here are people who come from middle-class and upper-class homes. They get involved for the glamour.” [Link]
One of the strangest developments in the original blood feud: a female juror began sleeping with one of the defendants.
… the killings can be traced to a dispute between Bindy Johal and Ron Donsanjh, two notorious drug dealers… A juror, Gillian Guess, was later charged and convicted of obstruction of justice, because she had a relationship with one of the co-defendants, authorities said. [Link]
oh no…I’m never going to make a smartass ‘model-minority’ gibe ever again. Real desi gangs? We don’t need this.
Oh damn. I had heard about that tunnel and was going to make a joke on my own blog about hoping they’d be red-heads. And, you know, encyclopedia fanatics. Maybe pawnbrokers. But I guess not if they’re desi. Unless they use a lot of henna.
Then again Timothy Woo? Jonathan Valenzuela? Extrapolating from last names wildly and irresponsibly–maybe this is North America’s first multiracial gang. The grass is truly a unifying force.
Perhaps they were just some wacky Steve McQueen fans recreating a scene from “The Great Escape”…
The Punjabi gangsters in BC are becoming increasingly organized, though by the looks of it they are still engaged in pointless violence.
I think the Punjabi involvement in the drug trade started with their dominance in the west coast trucking industry. Trafficking weed must have been a lucrative way of tripling ones income.
Then again maybe there is a deeper explanation. There are parts of the sub-continent ( see Kullu – Manali) with naturally occuring cannibis forests, where Marijuana literally grows like a weed… Lately foriegn neo-hippies have discovered this and flock to the region in droves, and more potent breeds are cultivated for their consumption.
Real desi gangs? We don’t need this.
Yeah, but we’ve got it, desi-gangs on the West Coast, especially Vancouver-Seattle, have been around since I was a kid. They’re in the Bay Area also, however, because there’s more profit to be made via the border, they’re more organized in the Northwest.
America’s first multiracial gang
The weed-line over here is covered by Mexicans, Chinese and Indians–Mexicans down south, Chinese up north and Indians all up and down the coast. Mexicans and Chinese cover local distribution & import and Indians cover most of the trafficking, “muscle” and financing (which explains why most of the killings are concentrated)… It’s a pretty slick set-up because all three groups rely on “family” which makes loyalties strong and also makes money harder to track. Indians and Chinese have a lot of legitimate businesses and overseas investments, so laundering is easy.
Anyhow, multiracial gangs aren’t that common, but also not out of the ordinary over here. Lot of the communities are new, newer and so they haven’t had years to get culturally entrenched and therefore mix a little more than on the East Coast…
… and then there is this apocryphal story of my friend who tried to fund his way through med school by selling India-made beedis as marjuana cigarettes.
That is, until PBS featured a documentary on how Indian beedis were the in-thing among school-kids in suburban US.
This story is superb. I love the fact that Indian drug smugglers use engineering. So there ARE some interesting engineers out there!
And yes, I’m also quite heartened by the UN-flavoured ethnic makeup of the hoods.
I bet they are Jat. Always talking about who they are going to beat up, batter or kill over some feud or another. Jat this, Jat that. I am the son of a Jat I am the this of a Jat oooh oooh Jat Jat Jat. Killing their own brothers over one square foot of land in Punjab. I have Jat relatives and they are always fighting each other. You fart in the direction of a Jat ten miles away and he takes offence. Most Jat have at least one grandparent who murdered someone in a Jat blood feud. They are like Sicilians or something.
Most Jats make at least ten death threats a day.
It is the Jat mentality, I tell ya.
Like, I gurantee in response to this, at least a few Jat will have a mental breakdown and start screaming and shouting for my blood. But I dont care – I know the Jat mentality and it is exactly like that – fighting and violence and celebrating boorishness and feuding. And they think it is something to be proud of – yeah – Jat Pride and all that kind of bakwaas.
So Jats reading this dont get offended. Not all of you are like that – just like not all Sicilians are like mafia fuckwits. But you cannot deny there is a culture of feuding, violence and chest-beating moustache twirling in the middle of all that ‘Jat Pride’. Some of you opt out of and escape that stupidity and comedy and macho hubris – well done. But dont say its not true, because it is – I know – I have Jat relatives and know y’all like the back of my hand.
I also hate those hippies that go to Himachal – in fact whenever I see a hippy I can understand the Jat mentality and believe them hippies in Himachal who are mostly saps and of low morals need a few Jat styles pubishment – also the hippy women that go there dont shave their armpits as I once found out to my horror and disappointment in a guest house in Manali three years ago – yuck.
Jats and Hippies – I cant stand them.
Another thing I dont like about some Jats is the way they try to make out that the Sikh religion and the Jat ‘nation’ (hahaha) is one and the same thing. Some Jat use the word Sikh and Jat interchangeably – as if being a Sikh is about being a member of a tribe or something. That is disgraceful and they should be ashamed of themselves, the people who do that.
And please cool your heads over my comments all my Jat brother and sisters (you looking at my sister? My sister who is the sister of a Jat? I’m gonna kill you bastard – hahaha only joking) just relax and dont get violent I know its hard to control your tempers and all that – but you know that you do have this attitude thing going on of which I just laughed and joked about but in every joke there is some truth.
well at least we’re making news outside of spelling bees.
“well at least we’re making news outside of spelling bees” …
and killer bees 😀
The tunnelling idea is also sorta reminiscent (sp?) of a movie titled “Ladykillers” with Tom Hanks. (Despite the fact that Tom Hanks was in it, I would not have picked it up .. too bad I did. Two thumbs down!)
Watch the original lucylu, classic Ealing comedy. The Hanks version was piss poor.
PB – Didn’t you ask for a post celebrating the imbeciles among us?
If you look at the names of those killed in recent brown on brown violence in BC, it is overwhelmingly Jatt: Bassi, Ghoman, Johl, Dosanjh, Bath, Toor, Sangha, Sidhu, Buttar, Brar, Tiwana, Gill, Mann, Dhillon, etc.
But you’ll also find a Sodhi (Khatri), Chana (Ramgarhia), Naidu (South?), Narain (Guyanese?), Shankar, Chand among the mix. Jatts may dominate Sikh society, but they definitely do not have a monopoly on stupidity.
big bhapa
Yeah, that list is one long list of stupid half-wits, for sure. Shameful.
Strange, the Canadian coverage of the tunnel on CBC (it’s big news) didn’t mention the ethnicity of the tunnelers at all.
And “Francis Raj” doesn’t really sound Punjabi. It’s true that the stereotypical west-coast drug dealer name is “Sukhwinder”, but I’m not sure it’s fair to pin the blame on the Punjabi in this particular case.
Oh, and I wrote about deceased crime boss Bindy Johal once on my long defunct blog, and years later, he’s still one of the top search strings. Is Bindy, like Tupac, still alive?
(The murderous reality is depressing, but a pretty cool movie could be made about Bindy Johal, Gillan Guess, and punjabi gangs on the west coast, Godfather syle.)
the closest thing I ever experienced to a desi gang was when I was at a party getting harrassed about my SAT scores and grades and got into it w/ some IT guys. I was pretty intimidated after that. I had to transfer schools to keep my report card from being published on the net.
Jats done gone wild- Not that I needed any reminding to keep my smoldering ‘can i dance with yo women?’ looks to meself at basement bhangra.
As a Jat from a long family of jats from the UP I take offense to the jat bashing. Here’s my threat: I’ll chop ya up and put you in a mattress like druug money nigga!
Timothy Woo is Chinese and Jonathan Valenzuela is Filipino, not Mexican. I’m guessing that Francis Devandra Raj is Indian but I’ve never met him.
My freshman year of college, I met some engineering students on my floor that did some interesting things with a soldering iron and a vodka bottle for similar purposes. You see what they could do if they stopped joining the auto industry, defense industry, or Al Qaeda?
To enooN, how did you know that Jonathan Valenzuela is Filipino? Any proof? My friend and I are arguing about it. He says Valenzuela is Hispanic.
also to enooN do you know timothy woo and jonathan valenzuela? cuz i do so i’m curious
timothy woo is a great guy, he’s not as bad as all this media portrays him to be. Your all just jealous you didn’t think of this idea first