Manteca man sentenced to 9 years for murder-for-hire conspiracy

(FOX40.COM) — Jagninder Singh Boparai, 49, of Manteca, was sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.
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District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta sentenced Boparai on Thursday, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant Announced.

“This defendant met on five separate occasions with a person he thought to be a hitman and provided payments for the services he desired in order to ‘teach a lesson’ to two of his enemies,” Grant said. “Fortunately, there was no hitman, and today’s sentence teaches a lesson that the U.S. Attorney’s Office will use all its tools to bring to justice those who endanger the safety of the public.”

Boparai conspired with Ramesh Kumar Birla Jr., of Dublin, and Shaminderjit Singh Sandhu, of Tracy, to murder a man with whom they had a dispute, according to court documents.

Boparai met with a person he believed to be a hitman at a Starbucks in Manteca in February 2023. The “hitman” was a confidential informant working for the FBI. The informant’s first job was to assault another man with whom the defendants were feuding to prove his trustworthiness.

Court documents show that the following day, Boparai met with the informant again to offer $6,000 for the assault. After more time had passed, the informant showed Boparai a staged photo of the supposed assault victim lying on the ground, injured with bruises, blood and dirt.

Boparai then gave the informant two other jobs: one involved robbing a business and the other involved making a person “disappear”.

In March 2023, Boparai met with the informant to make a down payment of $10,000 for the murder for hire job. Sandu provided the victim’s address.

Sandu and Birla met with the informant in a parking lot in Manteca, claiming Boparai was out of town. However, Boparai was observed by surveillance remaining in a car in the same lot, according to the Department of Justice.

Sandu and Birla instructed the informant to kill the victim and take his remains to Mexico in a suitcase.

All three defendants were arrested on March 31, 2023 and are currently in federal custody.

Sandhu is scheduled to be sentenced on November 13 by Judge Calabretta.

He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Charges are pending against Birla, and he is scheduled for a status conference on October 23. If convicted, he faces the same penalties as Sandhu.