South Asian businesses targeted in recent extortion attempts: Surrey MP
Posted December 6, 2023 7:29 am.
Last Updated December 6, 2023 5:51 pm.
The MP for Surrey Centre says South Asian-owned businesses in the city are the ones being targeted in recent extortion attempts.
Randeep Sarai says it’s something the community has seen before.
“In the 90s there was similar scenarios, when the the gang violence in South Vancouver was happening, first in the 90s and early 2000s, there was a similar pattern there. In Montreal, it’s very known — there was similar types of patterns in the early 2000s,” he told CityNews sister station OMNI news.
Over the past few weeks, police in both Surrey and Abbotsford say business owners have been told that unless they pay money, the safety of their businesses can’t be guaranteed.
Just last week, the Abbotsford Police Department (AbbyPD) said it is investigating extortion letters reportedly sent to multiple local businesses.
According to police, the identical letters demand businesses pay the sender in exchange for “protection from future violence.”
AbbyPD said the letters are generic and do not include any specifics about the businesses or the threats being made against them. They also do not indicate a method of payment, contact, or communication, police added.
Sarai adds it’s not just letters that are circulating — some business owners are also being telephoned with threats if they ignore the letters.
“Generally, they get a call from a service, not a normal phone service, but on WhatsApp or some other type of phone messaging service, or they get a threatening message or a threatening call saying, ‘Pay up. You’ve got a business, you expanded your business, so we want this much money.’
“If they ignore it, then they get the threats to their business or their homes being shot at,” Sarai said. “That’s been the sequence that I’ve heard from people who have reached out to me. It may be different in some cases, but that’s what we have heard.”
Sarai says the federal government is working with its provincial partners and police to address the problem.
–With files from OMNI News
