Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding still trafficking drugs while on the run, prosecutors say
CBC
Former Team Canada Olympian-turned-fugitive Ryan Wedding is still alive and active in the drug trade while on the run from the FBI, according to U.S. authorities.
The revelation is included in a letter from federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, recently filed as evidence in Superior Court in Toronto and reviewed by CBC News. In the memo, the prosecutors warn against granting bail to Gurpreet Singh, one of Wedding's alleged accomplices in custody in Ontario and facing extradition to the U.S.
"Investigators are aware that Wedding continues to traffic drugs while in hiding," assistant U.S. attorneys Maria Jhai and Lyndsi Allsop write in the three-page letter dated Feb. 21. "Wedding should not be granted access to an additional loyalist through the release of Singh on bail."
Wedding, 43, who competed for Canada as a snowboarder at the 2002 Olympic Games in Utah, is listed as one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives. He faces federal charges related to three murders, a cocaine trafficking conspiracy and for "leading a continuing criminal enterprise."
U.S. prosecutors accuse the Thunder Bay, Ont., native of running a $1-billion US drug-smuggling network with ties to Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel. Wanted by the RCMP on separate charges since 2015, Wedding is believed to be hiding out in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America.
According to U.S. prosecutors, Wedding took credit for negotiating Singh's release last summer, after the Toronto-area man was kidnapped by cartel members in Mexico over a $600,000 drug debt. The episode was first revealed at Singh's bail hearing last week in a downtown Toronto courtroom.
U.S. prosecutors say Singh and a companion travelled to Culiacan, the capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state, no later than July 29, 2024, to meet with a cartel leader to resolve the debt dispute. On Aug. 2, Singh "reported that they had been kidnapped and tied up and had been given until the end of the day to pay the debt," according to prosecutors Jhai and Allsop.
Court documents lay out what purportedly happened next: Singh's wife collected roughly $400,000 toward a ransom payment to the cartel, and obtained Wedding's assistance. In encrypted communications, Wedding said he would negotiate the release of Singh, who confirmed by Aug. 7 he had been freed.
U.S. prosecutors warn Singh poses a "substantial" flight risk, and that the kidnapping incident suggests he and his wife now owe a debt to Wedding. "Were Singh to flee, and become a fugitive himself, he would have every incentive to seek Wedding's protection, as he has done before," the prosecutors wrote.
According to court documents, Singh and his co-defendant Hardeep Ratte, who is also Singh's uncle, are accused of operating a transportation network that helped Wedding move hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from stash houses in California to Canada. Singh and Ratte purportedly discussed the arrangement at a meeting recorded last year by a key FBI witness at an auto body shop in Brampton, Ont.
The same witness — a former associate of Wedding — flew to meet with Singh in the United Arab Emirates, according to a summary of the prosecution's case filed in court. U.S. prosecutors allege Singh has "extensive organized crime connections within Dubai, including relationships with members of the Kinahan gang, which is a well-known, violent organized crime group operating throughout the world."
Singh, 31, is also alleged to have been involved in a scheme to ship stolen high-end cars to Dubai through the port of Montreal.
His bail hearing is scheduled to resume next week.
U.S. prosecutors declined to comment on a Toronto Star report that the FBI's key witness was Canadian-Colombian Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, who was assassinated in a Medellin, Colombia, restaurant in January.
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