Ranjit Cheema

Early life Ranjit Singh Cheema was born in 1968 to a Jat Sikh family of the Cheema clan in the small village of Cheema Khurd, Jalandhar district, Punjab, India. According to Cheema, his father Malkit was abusive and suffered from alcoholism and his family was poor. In the May 1995 trial of Bhupinder "Bindy" Singh Johal, who was accused of murdering gangster brothers Jimsher "Jimmy" Singh Dosanjh and Ranjit "Ron" Singh Dosanjh, Cheema was identified as an associate of Johal and a major drug distributor involved in cocaine trafficking. In August 1995, Cheema was shot at the Zodiac Karaoke nightclub in Richmond, British Columbia.

In 1998, the United States charged Cheema of attempting to smuggle heroin and hashish from Pakistan to California and exchange it with Colombian gangs for cocaine. He would not be extradited for another decade as he filed numerous appeals.

At a May 2000 wedding in Vancouver attended by Cheema and by then-premier Ujjal Dosanjh, Cheema's bodyguard Mike Brar was killed.

In 2008, Cheema was finally extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty. Cheema was imprisoned in California until being released in 2012, when he returned to Vancouver and attempted to return to drug smuggling. just three months after being released from prison for the attempted sale of 200 kilograms of heroin. According to crime journalist Kim Bolan and her police sources, "Since returning from a California prison three months ago, longtime Vancouver gangster Ranjit Singh Cheema had been trying to muscle his way back into the lucrative B.C. drug trade before he was gunned down Wednesday. In the process, Cheema disrespected some of his former underlings who have moved up in the business since the 43-year-old went to jail. Some close to Cheema, as well as police sources, believe recent disputes with old associates could have led to the gangland execution of the former south slope crime boss in front of his parents' house on East 61st Avenue. "He was trying to step into his old role," one friend said. "He didn't realize that things have changed."