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Canada will seek to prevent three alleged members of fugitive Ryan Wedding’s drug-trafficking network from being released on bail, a court in Toronto has heard.
The men — Gursewak Singh Bal, Deepak Balwant Paradkar and Rolan Sokolovski — were each arrested in Ontario last week and face extradition to the U.S. to stand trial over their alleged roles in the drug ring.
“We’re opposing release on all three,” Marin Nati, a lawyer for the Department of Justice Canada told a brief Superior Court of Justice hearing on Wednesday, held by videoconference.
Bal — a crime blogger who U.S. prosecutors accuse of helping to set up the assassination of an FBI witness — appeared by video link from a Kawartha Lakes, Ont., jail. Months before his arrest, he told CBC News he had accepted “substantial” money to stay quiet about Wedding.
From left: Rolan Sokolovski, Deepak Balwant Paradkar and Gursewak Singh Bal were arrested on Nov. 18 in connection with their alleged roles in a transnational criminal network linked to Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding. (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California; CBC)
U.S. prosecutors say Paradkar, a prominent Toronto-area lawyer, counselled Wedding to have the witness killed. Local jeweller and professional poker player Sokolovski is accused of laundering Wedding’s proceeds of crime.
Neither Paradkar or Sokolovski appeared for the hearing.
Wedding, a former Team Canada Olympic snowboarder accused of running a Mexico-based drug-smuggling empire, is listed as one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives. The U.S. State Department is offering a $15-million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Wedding has been on the run since 2015, when he was charged in a large-scale drug-import scheme uncovered by the RCMP.
Eleven of his alleged accomplices were arrested last week as the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a new indictment naming Wedding and several others from Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Colombia.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding “controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world and works closely with the Sinaloa Cartel.”
Prosecutors in California last week announced new charges against the Thunder Bay, Ont.-born fugitive and his alleged associates — related to cocaine trafficking, money laundering and the January killing of the witness, drug trafficker Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia. A former Wedding ally who agreed to testify against him, Acebedo-Garcia was shot in January at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia.
Bal, Paradkar and Sokolovski are being held in separate Ontario jails. Their lawyers each told the court their clients are seeking to be released on bail.
Canadian Ryan Wedding is listed as one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives, with a reward of up to $15 million US offered for information leading to his arrest. (FBI)
Paradkar and Sokolovski will return to court on Dec. 10 and 11, respectively, for bail hearings. Bal is scheduled to appear on Dec. 17 to set a date for a bail hearing.
“We do not intend to discuss the case in the media while it [is] before the courts,” Sokolovski’s lawyer, Scott K. Fenton, told CBC News.
A Vancouver man accused of acting as another key money launderer for Wedding is expected to appear in a B.C. court later today. Rasheed Pascua Hossain, who went by the alias “JP Morgan,” was arrested by the RCMP last Friday after evading authorities for much of the week.
Hossain’s lawyer Rahul Nanda declined to comment on the case.
Both Hossain and Sokolovski’s names appear in a chart released by prosecutors that they say illustrates the flow of hundreds of millions dollars in cryptocurrency, destined for Wedding and his drug ring’s alleged second-in-command, Andrew Clark. Authorities have suggested the network brought in more than $1 billion US a year in revenues.
Another four men were arrested by Toronto police more than a year ago in connection with allegations stemming from a previous U.S. indictment related to Wedding’s purported criminal network.
None of the four has since been released on bail.
Gurpreet Singh, accused alongside his uncle of leading a transportation network that moved bulk shipments of Colombian cocaine by transport truck on Wedding’s behalf, was denied bail in March.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Dineen wrote at the time that Singh “has a very strong incentive to flee to avoid a potential sentence greater than 20 years” in the U.S.
WATCH | Ryan Wedding’s path from Olympian to fugitive:
Ryan Wedding’s path from Olympian to most-wanted fugitive
Ryan Wedding once represented Canada as an Olympic snowboarder; now he’s accused of being a drug kingpin and is on the FBI’s most wanted list — with a $10 million US reward being offered for information leading to his arrest. CBC’s Thomas Daigle traces his shocking path from the top of the slopes to the underworld.
Each man is wanted to stand trial in Los Angeles on federal charges related to what the U.S. prosecutors call the Wedding Criminal Enterprise. In each instance, a Canadian court must first weigh the U.S. extradition request.
The process can take several months.
Another co-defendent, an alleged hitman accused of carrying out a Niagara Falls, Ont., murder on behalf of Wedding’s network, has a formal extradition hearing set for January. Malik Damion Cunningham, who went by the alias “Mr. Perfect,” has been in custody in Ontario for 13 months.
CBC News senior reporter Thomas Daigle has extensively covered the search for Ryan Wedding. He can be reached by email at thomas.daigle@cbc.ca.
