Ranjit "Ranj" Singh Cheema was a Vancouver-based Sikh-Canadian gangster, drug trader and longtime under-world rival of notorious gangster and former Cheema disciple, Bindy Johal.
12 Facts About Ranjit Cheema
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Ranjit Cheema was involved in organized crime for over two-decades in Vancouver and in cocaine trafficking.
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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.
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Ranjit Cheema worked with his mother in Fraser Valley berry farms during summer break from the ages of 10 to 15, following which he worked as a janitor at night while attending high school.
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Ranjit Cheema claimed that he wanted to become a police officer while in college.
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At the time of the shooting, Ranjit Cheema was with Manjinder "Robbie" Singh Kandola, a founder of the Independent Soldiers gang.
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In 1998, the United States charged Ranjit Cheema of attempting to smuggle heroin and hashish from Pakistan to California and exchange it with Colombian gangs for cocaine.
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Ranjit Cheema was then arrested but released after the complainant died.
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In 2008, Ranjit Cheema was finally extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty.
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Ranjit Cheema was imprisoned in California until being released in 2012, when he returned to Vancouver and attempted to return to drug smuggling.
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Ranjit Cheema was married and had a daughter born in 2004.
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Ranjit Cheema was killed on 2 May 2012, in a targeted drive-by shooting, just three months after being released from prison for the attempted sale of 200 kilograms of heroin.