Olympic Snowboarder, Nightclub Owner Among Those Charged with Trafficking Cocaine from Mexico to Canada

Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015, said Chris Leather, chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “Those charges are very much unresolved,” Leather said.

Wedding previously was convicted in San Diego, California of possession and conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 2009 and was sentenced to prison in 2010. US authorities believe that after Wedding’s release in 2011, he resumed drug trafficking and after fleeing charges in Canada to Mexico, he has been protected by the Sinaloa Cartel there.

Operation Giant Slalom

According to prosecutors, Wedding’s group moved large shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and California to Canada and other locations in the United States using long-haul semi-trucks. Wedding, is one of 16 people charged.

The RCMP said 10 Canadians were facing charges stemming from the international police operation.

“This was a very sophisticated operation. They were operating out of Colombia, Mexico, the United States, and Canada – four different countries, as well as others. And in order to trace all the criminal activity, all the violent crimes to them. It took a great deal of investigation,” Estrada said.

Toronto police said four suspects were arrested in the city, including two accused of running Wedding’s alleged drug shipping operations through Canada.

Ontario residents Hardeep Ratte, 45, and Gurpreet Singh, 30, ran the Canadian transportation operations of Wedding and Clark’s drug trafficking network, using long-haul semi-trucks to transport the narcotics into the country after they were stored in stash houses in Los Angeles.

Ratte and Singh were arrested in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities pending extradition.

Jagtar Singh Sidhu, and Harbhajan Kaur Sidhu, were fatally shot in their family’s rental home in Caledon, Ontario. Singh was pronounced dead at the scene and Kaur died in hospital 13 days later. Their daughter was also shot and injured but survived. Their son, Gurdit, was not home at the time.

According to property records, the shooting occurred at a Mayfield Road house owned by a numbered company that has been the subject of a court battle with the Town of Caledon over what it called an “illegal transportation depot.”

In January, the town obtained a court injunction against the numbered company and ordered it to remove trucking equipment from the property the month prior.

“This was a case of mistaken identity,” Estrada said. “They were killed in cold blood in front of their daughter, who was also shot 13 times.”

The Sikh family was not connected to the trucking business and were renting the upper part of the house. The basement unit was also being rented out to a man who saw the gunmen flee in a black pickup truck.

The gunmen shot members of a innocent family by mistake, nearly 50 times. They then fled the scene in a stolen black Ford F-150, which was later found torched on the street (a common scene with hired hits in Canada).

Wedding and Clark allegedly also ordered the murder of Mohammed Zafar, 39, in Brampton on May 18, 2024, over a drug debt. 

Others indicted include: Gannadii Bilonog, Carlos Alberto Pena Goyeneche, Rakhim Ibragimov, Malik Damion Cunningham, Joel Sosa Cardenas, Anthony Mendoza Lopez, Andres Felippe Puccetti Iriarte, Anselmo Acuna Garcia, Juan Manuel Quinonez Jimenez, Iqbal Singh Virk and Ranjit Singh Rowal.

Colombian Connection

Mass quantities of cocaine were sourced from Colombia, where it was ‘cooked’ or manufactured in so-called cocaine kitchens, before being transported into Mexico, according to federal prosecutors. From there, the cocaine was allegedly trafficked into the U.S. in long-haul trucks and brought into Southern California.

For example, in March 2024, the network allegedly delivered 293 kilos of cocaine for shipment and distribution to Canada and another shipment the following month contained 375.1 kilos, federal authorities said. The cocaine was being delivered to representatives of Ratte and Singh for eventual transportation to Canada, but investigators interrupted the delivery and seized the 375 kilos of cocaine.