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

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

A manhunt is on for former Olympian Ryan James Wedding, 43, and the FBI is offering $50,000 for information leading to his arrest. His drug trafficking partner, Canadian Andrew Clark was arrested in Mexico on an Interpol warrant two weeks ago. Wedding is also believed to have been residing in Mexico and is considered armed and dangerous by US authorities.

As part of the takedown of the drug trafficking network, raids were conducted at a $15 million mansion in Miami, Florida, formerly owned by DJ Khaled and currently resided by Nahim Jorge Bonilla, a music business exec and co-owner of local nightclub and restaurant Mandrake. Bonilla was arrested at the mansion.

Wedding and Clark are also being charged with the mistaken identity murder of an Indian Sikh couple visiting their children in Canada and two other murders related to drug trafficking tons of cocaine from Mexico, into California and then placed on long haul trucks to Canada.

"For the last 13 years, Wedding ran this criminal enterprise," U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada told reporters during a news conference Thursday, describing the alleged drug ring as a "ruthless" operation that made billions of dollars. His operation shipped as much as 827 pounds of cocaine in a month, moving it from Mexico to Southern California, and then to Ontario, Canada.

Wedding competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and ranked #24 in the snowboarding slalom event. 

“Instead of using the privileges of being an Olympic athlete to do good for people, he did the opposite,” Estrada said. “He chose to become a major drug trafficker, and he chose to become a killer.” He used the nicknames "El Jefe," "Giant," and "Public Enemy."

The former Olympian snowboarder for Canada has been charged with running a drug trafficking ring that shipped at least 60 tons of cocaine each year across the Americas and ordered the killings of four people.

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.

Authorities said they seized more than a ton of cocaine, weapons and ammunition, $250,000 cash and more than $3 million in cryptocurrency in connection with their investigation.

They also allege the group killed two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment in what officials there said was a case of mistaken identity as well as two other people, according to officials and federal court filings.

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.

Sikh Couple in Canada Killed

Wedding and Clark are accused of directing the killing of two people in Ontario, Canada in late November 2023, allegedly in retaliation for a drug shipment stolen in Southern California.

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.”

“There were trucks all behind the property, and they were using this driveway to come and go,” Ahmad said at the scene, adding that even after the trucks left, there continued to be many people “coming and going” out of the home. A lot of police presence at the house had been reported as well in the previous year.

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.

Weeks prior to the shooting, Canadian police visited the part of the home the family was renting stating they were 'looking for someone' and went to verify who was living at the property.

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. 

Wedding, Clark, and Malik Damion Cunningham, 23, a resident of Canada, are charged with the April 1, 2024, murder of another victim, 29-year-old Randy Fader, in Niagara Falls, Canada.

The identity of the gunmen who killed the Sidhu family is still unknown and the case is unsolved in Canada. Police said their shooting was linked to at least five others in the span of just over two weeks.

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.

Similarly, earlier this year a network involving CJNG traffickers and the Montreal Mafia was taken down that followed similar smuggling routes using long-haul truckers.

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.

As part of a joint investigation, 12 people were arrested in the US, Canada, Colombia and Mexico in connection with the drug trafficking enterprise.

Aside from Wedding, three others are still at large including a Canadian and pair of Colombian traffickers.

Arrest in Mexico

Andrew Clark, 34, another Canadian citizen living in Mexico, whose digital aliases include "The Dictator," was arrested on October 8 by Mexican police in Plaza Andares in Zapopan, Jalisco and remains in custody.

The arrest was made by the FGR with the Interpol Mexico division and support from the Mexican Navy.

Raid in Miami

An FBI raid Wednesday on a sprawling, multi-million dollar mansion in Aventura, Miami Beach, Florida was part of a wide scale federal operation to take down a transnational cocaine trafficking organization that officials say is headed by a former Olympic athlete. One person was arrested when the warrant was served at 3914 Island Estates Drive, Kristi Hawkins, FBI special agent in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office, said during a media briefing Thursday.

The home is owned by music executive and Miami Beach restaurateur and fellow Canadian Nahim Jorge Bonilla, 36, whose name is among 16 people listed in the indictment.

Bonilla (left) at one of many parties held at Mandrake. DJ Khaled is seen on the right.

Bonilla, co-owner of Mandrake, located at 210 23rd St. in Miami Beach, is in custody at the Miami Federal Detention Center.

Bonilla, along with business partner Canadian businessman Simon Librati, who is also co-owner of Mandrake, bought the 6,522-square-foot mansion from famed record producer DJ Khaled for $4.8 million in 2020, real estate publication The Real Deal, reported. 

Librati is not named in the 52-page indictment released this week.

Librati was the former co-chairman and CEO of New York-based World Trade Financial Group. In 2018, he agreed to a five-year suspension from working in the US brokerage industry or owning a brokerage following an investigation of his firms’ trading, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In June 2020 Librati bought DJ Khaled’s waterfront Aventura mansion for $4.8 million.

Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, noted that “the organization, led by the former Olympian, cultivated a violent transnational drug trafficking empire that stretched from Canada to the United States, Mexico and Colombia. While key members of Wedding ’s criminal enterprise were successfully arrested this week, he remains at large.”

Sources DOJ, LA Times, RCMP, Miami Herald, AP News, JaliscoRojo, The Star, The Star, CBC, CBC, CTV News

Categories: Canada, cocaine, sinaloa cartel