B.C.’s provincial extortion task force has secured criminal charges against seven suspects, four months into its work.
The B.C. RCMP said at an update into the task force’s progress on Tuesday that the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) is investigating 111 foreign nationals who may be inadmissible to Canada for offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
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RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Brewer told reporters that those people are currently living in Canada, claiming refugee status.
“Making a refugee claim does not exempt lawbreakers from the consequences of their actions,” he said in front of reporters.
“CBSA continues to aggressively pursue the removal of extortionists attempting to evade justice by abusing Canadians concerned for genuine refugees in need of protection.”
Brewer said the task force is currently investigating 32 separate files across the province.
“The task force has obtained almost 100 judicial authorizations and executed multiple search warrants across the Lower Mainland,” he said.
“Investigators have made arrests, conducted searches incidental to those arrests, and obtained statements to lawfully secure perishable evidence.”
In addition to the seven charged, municipal police units have also secured charges in their own investigations — of which there have been more than a hundred across the region in the past year.
Brewer added that the task force and police units across the Lower Mainland are taking the threat to the public seriously.
“There are multiple groups involved in this. We have dealt with a number of groups, we have made arrests, we have seized lots of evidence towards that, got people before the courts, charges laid, we have had people deported,” he said.
“This is not one group or one individual. These are multiple groups conducting these extortions, and we are dealing with them.”
Just hours before Tuesday’s update, the Surrey Police Service (SPS) said they had responded to an extortion shooting targeting a business in the city’s Newton neighbourhood.
The overnight incident marked at least the 35th publicly reported extortion incident in Surrey in the first 19 days of 2026.
Surrey Police have said those incidents have targeted at least 21 victims and seen at least eight shots fired reports.
The task force is made up of 40 members of law enforcement agencies led by the B.C. RCMP and it was launched on Sept. 17 in response to the ongoing extortion threats.
“The task force understands this reality. It’s logged over 1000 separate exhibits plus hundreds of hours of CCTV in the quest for completing these investigations,” Brewer explained.
