Ryan Wedding’s GTA lawyer allegedly told him to have a witness murdered
Deepak Paradkar is now in custody along with six Canadians alleged to have been involved in Wedding’s drug-trafficking empire
The case of a Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug lord continues to stun, with the US Department of Justice claiming at a press conference yesterday that Ryan Wedding ordered the murder of a key witness who was set to testify against him.
Related: The story of Ryan Wedding, Canada’s Olympic snowboarder turned drug lord
Wedding is said to have overseen the trafficking of 60 tonnes of cocaine per year in a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise. He is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Wedding, who is linked to four murders in connection with a drug-trafficking scheme, posted photos of the witness and his wife to a Canadian website called the Dirty News, intending for them to be identified. (The website has since been taken offline.) Wedding allegedly put a bounty of $5 million (US) on his target, who was eventually killed.
“The witness was gunned down in a restaurant in Medellín, before he could testify against Wedding,” Bondi said.
In a 54-page indictment, Wedding’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar of Thornhill, is said to have told Wedding and his second-in-command, Andrew Clark, who is also Canadian, that the victim’s murder would be in their best interest legally. “His lawyer advised him to kill this witness,” said Bondi. “His lawyer told him, ‘If you kill this witness, the case would be dismissed.’”
Paradkar is now in custody, but Wedding remains at large, likely in Mexico, authorities say. Paradkar was one of ten people, seven of whom are Canadian, arrested in connection with what the US Department of Justice has dubbed Operation Giant Slalom.
“Make no mistake about it: Ryan Wedding is the modern day iteration of Pablo Escobar,” said Bondi. The reward for information leading to his arrest has been increased to $15 million (US).
Related: This man is the Jeff Bezos of the international drug trade
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
