Surrey, B.C., man says shootings at his businesses connected to ongoing extortion attempts
CBC
A Surrey, B.C., man says two recent shootings at his businesses are connected to ongoing extortion attempts targeting the South Asian community.
Satish Kumar, the president of the city's Lakshmi Narayan Mandir temple, said he received video voicemails on May 28 from numbers listed as being from Italy and New Zealand that demanded $2 million.
He said he refused to pay and reported it to police at the time, but officials took no action.
In the early hours of June 7, shots were fired at the banquet hall he owns, he said.
Shots were fired, he said, at another business he's connected to, Hub Insurance, on Tuesday.
No one was injured in the shootings at the businesses.
He said he's holding a public forum on Sunday, and announcing a $100,000 reward to encourage the community to help bring an end to the extortion and violence.
"I'm requesting the community [to] come forward," he said. "Don't be scared of these guys, right? They don't want to kill you. They want only money from you guys."
Kumar said that if community members come together, they can help find the shooters who live in Metro Vancouver as well as the extortionists.
Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, a spokesperson for the Surrey Police Service, said investigators hadn't yet connected the shootings to extortion.
"I would urge caution .... police can't jump to conclusions and immediately go from A to Z and make a connection," he told CBC News. "The evidence has to guide us in every case that we investigate."
An ongoing spate of extortion attempts targeting South Asian business owners led the RCMP to form a national task force to deal with the issue, which has also been reported in Alberta and the Greater Toronto Area.
Kumar said his son's Surrey home was the target of a December 2023 shooting, and he's received no updates from police on the case.
Houghton said it was far too early for police to connect that shooting and the two that occurred over the last week.
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