NEW DELHI: Hazy and aching from withdrawal, a 16-year-old in Ghaziabad woke up with a singular focus: his next toke of smack. Having traded school for a lighter and foil months ago, his day didn’t start with chores, but with the desperate calculations of how to scrounge or steal enough money to feed his addiction. But that morning, the math changed.Through a contact for a Meerut-based man named Suhel Malik, the boy received an offer that transcended petty theft. He was recruited into the “elite shadows” of the “Lawrence Bishnoi” gang. Enticed, the boy traded his heroin high for the kick of the underworld without realising it was merely a ruse and he was joining an ISI-run module in reality. The money fuelled his addiction and bought the bike he’d always craved.But this transition from a street-level addict to a tool of international espionage, however, marked a chilling evolution in how Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) now conducts business on Indian soil. In the past, the architecture of terror was a high-budget, meticulously planned affair. The gold standard for this was David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative who spent years laying the groundwork for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.The ISI spent millions of dollars on his training, hotel stays, multiple international trips, and the establishment of a front company with Tahawwur Rana in Mumbai just to provide him with cover while he filmed potential targets. Headley used state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, social engineering, and high-level contacts to map out the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Nariman House.But the world of 2026 seems to have moved towards a “gig economy” of subversion, where the ISI no longer needs to risk high-value agents or spend millions on deep-cover operatives. Instead, they have found a way to weaponise the local criminal underbelly by using baits like “Lawrence Bishnoi” to get the dirty work done for a fraction of the cost.The recent investigation by the intelligence agencies and Ghaziabad police has pulled back the curtain on this new, low-cost model of espionage. At the heart of it, as earlier reported by TOI, was a seemingly mundane operation involving solar-powered, SIM-based CCTV cameras.Mastermind Suhel Malik had orchestrated a network of around two dozen people, including nine juveniles, to install these cameras at strategic locations, including railway stations and security force installations in Delhi, Sonipat and beyond, providing live, high-definition feed to Pakistan. The recruits were from diverse backgrounds. A key operative, Naushad, had been working at a petrol pump in Faridabad for months. Meera, a gunrunner’s girlfriend, was earlier arrested for peddling fake Indian currency notes (FICN).The handlers even used local vernacular and cultural touchstones in the WhatsApp group — with the main group named “Lawrence Bishnoi 007” — to maintain the illusion. “To a 16-year-old drug addict or a petty criminal like those detained in this sweep, working for an ISI handler would be a terrifying prospect fraught with the risk of treason. They weren’t told they were working for Pakistan. They were told they were ‘working for the gang’. The recruits thought they were helping a gang monitor their rivals or plan a heist. In reality, they were serving as the eyes and ears of a foreign intelligence agency,” said an officer.But eventually, they introduced a “twist” to test loyalty – a supposed rift meant the recruits were shifting from the “Lawrence Bishnoi” banner to a gangster named Shehzad Bhatti. But to the 16 and 17 year-olds, the specific “Bhai” mattered less than the steady flow of cash they were used to by now. Later on, many of them allegedly realised that they had swallowed more than they could chew. However, it was late as the agencies were alerted and initiated a crackdown.Investigators believe that many such modules may be active as this not only works as a massive cost-saving measure for the ISI but also ensures “plausible deniability”. “If a juvenile is caught installing a camera, the trail leads back to a local gangster like Suhel, who points to another local criminal, and the chain breaks before it ever reaches a formal intelligence officer in Rawalpindi or Lahore,” an investigator said.While the curtains are still being lifted, it is clear that ISI seems to have realised that in the age of 5G, they don’t need a Headley to walk through the front door of a target site. They just need a youngster who is craving smack and a bike and is willing to mount a camera on a pole to get these.
