The U.S. Department of Justice says a Canadian ex-Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug-trafficking kingpin ordered the January murder of a key witness in the case against him on the advice of his Greater Toronto Area lawyer. “He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said of Ryan Wedding at a news conference on Wednesday. “He is the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.” In unsealing the new indictment, the DOJ announced that 10 suspects, seven of whom are Canadian, were arrested on Tuesday in connection with what officials are calling phase two of “Operation Giant Slalom.” Four suspects, including Wedding, are still at-large. The new charges laid Tuesday include drug trafficking, murder, and witness tampering. Wedding’s lawyer, 62-year-old Thornhill, Ont., resident Deepak Balwant Paradkar, is listed among those in custody. The dual Indian-Canadian citizen’s co-accused include: The DOJ said it plans to extradite the Canadians arrested on Tuesday to the U.S. to stand trial and that the reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest has increased from US$10 million to $15 million. Officials say Wedding, whose aliases include “El Jefe,” “Giant,” and “Public Enemy,” is believed to be living in Mexico and is being protected by the Sinaloa cartel. He was previously listed and remains on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. Wedding has been linked to at least four murders in Ontario in furtherance of his alleged drug empire, which police say used long-haul semi-trucks to transport cocaine across Colombia, Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Bondi said, under Wedding’s direction, the group has trafficked 60 metric tons of cocaine per year through those channels in what has become a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise. ‘The modern day iteration of Pablo Escobar’ The 44-year-old fugitive allegedly used a Canadian website called “The Dirty News” to post photographs of the witness, who was not named, and his wife to locate them. “The witness was gunned down in a restaurant in Medellín, before he could testify against Wedding,” Bondi said. She highlighted that the murder came after Wedding was first indicted in October 2024. The victim was shot in the head five times and died instantly. The indictment states that Wedding placed a bounty of up to US$5 million on the head of the witness and Singh Bal, the co-founder and co-operator of “The Dirty News,” agreed to post a photograph of the witness so that they could be “located and killed” in exchange for a roughly CAD$10,000 payment. The website has since been seized and shut down. It’s alleged that Basora-Hernandez, who authorities say is a reggaeton musician and citizen of the Dominican Republic, provided co-conspirators with the victim’s contact information for the purpose of helping Wedding and his criminal enterprise locate and murder the victim. The indictment alleges that Wedding informed his alleged second-in-command, Canadian Andrew Clark, that the witness was dead on Jan. 31, 2025 and sent him a photograph of the corpse. Clark was in custody in Mexico awaiting extradition proceedings at the time. Wedding, the indictment said, then facilitated a US$500,000 payment to “members of the conspiracy in Colombia.” FBI Director Kash Patel called Wedding and his associates “animals” in describing their alleged drug-trafficking network, the likes of which he said the Bureau has not seen “in a long time.” “You do not get to be a drug kingpin and evade the law. Make no mistake about it: Ryan Wedding is the modern day iteration of Pablo Escobar. He’s a modern day iteration of (Joaquín) “El Chapo” Guzmán. This Justice Department and this FBI will work with our Canadian counterparts and the government officials across the world to bring him to justice," he said. ‘If you kill this witness, the case would be dismissed’ U.S. officials said that Paradkar, whose aliases include “cocaine_lawyer,” introduced Wedding to the drug traffickers that moved his narcotics and helped him with bribery and murder. According to the 54-page indictment, Paradkar advised Wedding and Clark that the murder of the witness would result in the case collapsing and help them avoid extradition from Mexico on the criminal charges. “Defendant Paradkar, and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, would advise defendant Wedding and Clark that Victim A’s murder would benefit them by causing the federal indictment against them in Wedding I and related extradition proceedings to be dismissed,” the indictment reads. “His lawyer advised him to kill this witness. His lawyer told him, ‘If you kill this witness, the case would be dismissed.’ That lawyer is now in custody and he’ll be extradited and brought to justice here in the United States,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, of the Central District of California. The indictment goes on to say that Paradkar allegedly allowed Clark to “covertly” listen in on a conversation he was having with one of their co-accused. In another case, while Clark and another defendant discussed killing another co-accused, Paradkar advised them to “discuss the matter on a different chat without him present and to delete any and all discussion of the murder plot.” In a a news release published to the website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which issued separate sanctions against Wedding and Paradkar on Wednesday, officials accused the lawyer of violating the “trust of his clients and the ethics of his profession” by allowing Wedding and his associates to eavesdrop on privileged communication. They said Paradkar was paid in luxury watches and additional fees for his alleged illegal services. Paradkar is not the only individual with ties to the GTA facing new charges, Rolan Sokolovski, 37, of Toronto is also facing charges for allegedly laundering illicit funds through his jewelry business, 2351885 Ontario Inc, which maintains a storefront in downtown Toronto under the name ‘Diamond Tsar." The indictment further alleges that Sokolovski “made a bejeweled necklace” for one of the defendants “as a reward for his role” in the murder of the key witness. Eight other individuals and nine entities were also sanctioned Wednesday, but not all were charged criminally. Wedding allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug ring and used cryptocurrency to conceal them. Bondi said that, so far, roughly US$3.2 million in cryptocurrency has been recovered, and over $13 million in physical assets has been confiscated. Wedding is ‘one of the top threats to Canadian public safety’ Mike Duheme, the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was on hand for Wednesday’s news conference. He underscored that although North American police agencies have been working tirelessly to track Wedding down, their work is “not done.” “Fugitive Ryan Wedding remains one of the top threats to Canadian public safety,” he said. Wedding and Clark are accused of directing a deadly triple shooting in Caledon, Ont., on Nov. 20, 2023 in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment. A couple, who was visiting from India, was killed. Their daughter was seriously injured, but survived. Police have said the victims were not the intended targets and were “completely innocent.” Clark, who has ties to Toronto, was arrested in Mexico in 2024 and has since been extradited to the U.S. A murder in Niagara region and Peel Region are also linked to the group. The RCMP previously said that Wedding faces what they described as “unresolved” drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015. He previously served prison time in the U.S. for a 2010 conviction for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Wedding competed for Canada in the parallel giant slalom at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He finished in 24th place.
