‘Modern-Day Escobar’: U.S. Says Former Canadian Olympian Ran 60-Tonne-a-Year Cocaine Pipeline with Cartel Protection, Hit Squads and a Corrupt Toronto Lawyer

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has unsealed fresh criminal charges and sweeping financial sanctions against former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding, alleging that he orchestrated the importation of up to 60 metric tonnes of cocaine a year into the United States and Canada, relied on a Toronto lawyer who, according to the U.S. Treasury, “has also helped Wedding with bribery and murder,” and, while under the protection of a former Mexican law-enforcement officer with ties to senior Mexican police officials, ordered dozens of sophisticated assassinations across Canada, Latin America and the United States — including the execution of a federal witness in Colombia, according to U.S. government filings.

According to Attorney General Pam Bondi, “Wedding controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world,” working “closely with the Sinaloa Cartel, a foreign terrorist organization, to flood not only American but also Canadian communities with cocaine.” Bondi said Wedding’s organization is responsible for moving multi-ton quantities of cocaine each year through Mexico into Los Angeles, before the drugs are shipped onward to Canadian and U.S. cities in long-haul semi-trucks.

As reported by The Bureau, these trucks and routes are controlled by Indo-Canadian crime networks. The U.S. government says that a Toronto lawyer, Deepak Balwant Paradkar, “introduced Wedding to the drug traffickers that have been moving Wedding’s cocaine and has also helped Wedding with bribery and murder.”

FBI Director Kash Patel likened Wedding to a “modern-day iteration” of Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán and said Wedding is responsible for “engineering a narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time.”

The Justice Department and FBI say Wedding, who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, now heads a billion-dollar-a-year narcotics enterprise that engages in cocaine trafficking, contract killings and intimidation across the United States, Canada and Latin America. Another target named along with Wedding is a former Italian special-forces soldier who helps the network with training, according to the U.S. government.

Wedding is believed to be hiding in Mexico and remains on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, with the State Department increasing its reward to up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest.

Prosecutors say the new indictment centres on the January 31, 2025, murder of a federal witness in Medellín, Colombia. According to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California, Wedding “placed a bounty on the victim’s head in the erroneous belief that the victim’s death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him and his international drug trafficking ring and would further ensure that he was not extradited to the United States.” The victim was shot five times in the head while dining at a restaurant in Medellín and died instantly, Essayli said.

Justice Department filings and officials at today’s Washington news conference allege that Wedding and his associates used a fake gangland “news” site, The Dirty News, as part of the plot. The indictment states that co-accused Gursewak Singh Bal, a Mississauga man described as co-founder and co-operator of The Dirty News, agreed — “in exchange for payment” — not to post negative material about Wedding and instead published a photograph of the cooperating witness so that he “could be hunted down and killed.” Essayli said the site was seized pursuant to a federal warrant and is no longer online.

Ten defendants were arrested Tuesday in Canada, Colombia, Florida, Québec and Ontario. In a parallel move, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions against Wedding and nine individuals plus nine entities, effectively cutting them off from the American financial system.

Treasury describes Wedding as “an extremely violent criminal believed to be responsible for the murder of numerous people abroad, including U.S. citizens,” who “continues to direct drug trafficking, murder, and other serious criminal activities” from Mexico while on the run. The sanctions designation outlines a trans-Atlantic laundering system that moves proceeds through cryptocurrency, high-end cars and motorcycles, and front companies on three continents.

Among those named by Treasury:

Edgar Aaron Vázquez Alvarado, a former Mexican law-enforcement officer known as “the General,” who allegedly uses sources within Mexican police agencies to locate targets for Wedding and owns fuel-sector companies in Mexico;
Miryam Andrea Castillo Moreno, Wedding’s wife, accused of laundering his drug proceeds and assisting in acts of violence;
Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, a Colombian running a high-end prostitution ring in Mexico who allegedly assisted with the murder of a federal witness;
Daniela Alejandra Acuña Macias, a Colombian national described as Wedding’s girlfriend, accused of collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from him and helping obtain intelligence on rivals;
Deepak Balwant Paradkar, the Canadian attorney who Treasury says provided “illegal services” beyond a normal lawyer-client relationship, including introducing Wedding to key traffickers, helping with bribery and murder, and allowing Wedding to eavesdrop on privileged calls with other clients he allegedly wanted to kill;
Rolan Sokolovski, a Toronto jeweler who Treasury alleges laundered millions through his “Diamond Tsar” business and cryptocurrency transfers; and
Gianluca Tiepolo, an Italian former special-forces member who allegedly helped Wedding park his money in exotic vehicles and ran tactical training camps for hitmen.

According to Treasury, Paradkar “introduced Wedding to the drug traffickers that have been moving Wedding’s cocaine and has also helped Wedding with bribery and murder,” in exchange for luxury watches and additional fees. Vázquez and his Mexico-based fuel firms, Sokolovski’s jewelry company, and a series of Italian and U.K. vehicle and motorcycle dealers tied to Tiepolo have all been designated under Executive Order 14059 as part of Wedding’s laundering apparatus.

At the Washington news conference, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Mike Duheme emphasized the role of cross-border cooperation, saying: “International cooperation, such as our involvement in Operation Giant Slalom, is vital to our ability to stay ahead of organized crime.”

But that message of seamless cooperation contrasts with what senior U.S. law-enforcement officials were saying privately months ago.

As The Bureau previously reported, a senior U.S. source insisted there has been a troubling lack of RCMP collaboration in probing Wedding’s networks. Not only did the RCMP allegedly stonewall Drug Enforcement Administration requests six years ago to crack down on Canadian trucking routes tied to Wedding’s shipments through the United States, the source said, but there was also a lack of cooperation in targeting his violent cells inside Canada — where associates, competitors, and even an innocent Indo-Canadian family in Caledon, Ontario, mistakenly linked to a trucker from Wedding’s network, were brutally executed.

“We tried to work with RCMP on Wedding too, and they said, ‘No,’” a source aware of probes from three separate U.S. agencies said. “And it’s like — he’s killing Canadian citizens. He’s killed God knows how many. And you still don’t want to cooperate because of whatever grievance. But the RCMP threw up roadblocks. You’ve got to get past those things because Canadians are dying.”

More to come on this breaking story.