SoCal Metro worker among several arrested in transnational organized crime case

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Several people have been arrested, including a Metro worker, as part of an operation targeting a transnational organized crime ring responsible for flooding communities with drugs and illegal weapons, federal authorities announced Tuesday.

Justin Guzman, 26, was arrested at the El Monte Transit Center, where he works. Video shows him being taken out of the Metro offices and put into a federal vehicle.

Shortly after his arrests, the FBI and DEA searched a Highland Park apartment where Guzman resides, but agents were not seen leaving with anything. A second search warrant was served at another house in Highland Park, which officials say Guzman has frequented.

Federal prosecutors allege Guzman is an associate of an India-based organized crime syndicate, known as the Bhagwanpuria Organized Crime Ring, which operated in the Central District of California and elsewhere.

Twenty four people have been arrested so far, eight of them from Southern California, as part of "Operation Hard Ball." Tuesday's operation was carried out in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Among the crimes alleged, of them is the 2023 assassination of a prominent political and religious Sikh figure, identified in court documents as "H.S.N.," in Canada.

Two of the main leaders of the alleged crime groups are already imprisoned in India.

The group is also accused of engaging in acts involving extortion, kidnapping, trafficking and controlled substances, money laundering, human smuggling and murder.

"The organizations have flooded communities around the country with massive quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine. The organizations have preyed in particular on communities in the United States and and Canada with ties to India... and routinely extorted these individuals and their family members in India by threatening them with physical harm and death."

Approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaine and 1 kilogram of heroin along with $40,000 in cash and a dozen firearms have been seized as part of the investigation. A total of 23 search warrants have been executed in the Sacramento area and 11 warrants have been executed in the Los Angeles area, according to a press release.