SURREY - Assistant RCMP Commissioner John Brewer says police are "actively hunting" extortion suspects in the province and across provincial borders into Alberta and Ontario, amid a spike in extortion threats and shootings in B.C. since the start of the new year.
Brewer said in a four-month update since the creation of the BC Extortion Task Force that extortionists are changing their methods in response to law enforcement efforts, as police continue to try to "root them out" and arrest them or deport them.Â
He said shootings and threats of violence create "fear and uncertainty within the community," but he said people shouldn't take the law into their own hands after reports out of Surrey, B.C., that a target returned fire in one of the city's latest incidents of gunfire coupled with attempted extortion.
"There's no need for anybody to take the law in their hands or engage in overt acts of self-defence here. You are going to endanger yourself and you're going to endanger your neighbours," he said. "Let the police do their job."Â
Brewer said at a news conference in Surrey, B.C., on Tuesday that police are also working with the Canada Border Services Agency.Â
He said the agency is investigating the admissibility of 111 foreign nationals, telling the news conference that "making a refugee claim does not exempt lawbreakers from the consequences of their actions."
Nine of the people investigated by the border agency have been deported, he said. Â
Brewer said the task force has taken over 32 files across the Lower Mainland since it was established in September to combat a wave of shootings and blackmail attempts targeting the South Asian community.
He said seven people had been criminally charged and nine people removed from Canada, while there were "a number of files" with Crown prosecutors being finalized to get more charges laid.Â
The update comes amid a surge in extortion-related crime in Surrey where police said they had responded to another shooting.
It happened early Monday at about 4:30 a.m. along King George Boulevard near 71 Avenue, where the shooting was reported at a local business.
The Surrey Police Service said no one was injured, but they arrived to find the business and some vehicles damaged.
Serious crime investigators have taken the case, with police saying the attack appears to be linked to the spate of extortion violence.
The shooting is one of at least four in the Metro Vancouver city over the last week that investigators have linked to extortion.
Brewer said Tuesday that some of the suspects facing charges are in custody, while some have been released on "strict conditions."Â
He said police efforts have been "unrelenting" and the task force has over 1,000 exhibits and hundreds of hours of CCTV footage that is being meticulously analyzed.
The task force said in a statement that it had "obtained almost 100 judicial authorizations and executed multiple search warrants" since its inception in both B.C. and in Alberta.
"We are not on our back feet anymore … We are moving forward. We are now actively hunting these extortionists, and they know we're hunting them," he said. "They are changing their (modus operandi) because we're hunting them, and we will continue to hunt them. We will root them out from every dark corner they try to hide in, and will either put them before the courts, or they will be deported"Â
This report by ºÃÉ«tvwas first published Jan. 20, 2026.
