Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding Lieutenant to plead not guilty of murder, drug charges: lawyer

The alleged crime chief known as dictator – Accused of orchestrating the fatal shooting of 2023 of an innocent couple in Caudon, ont. “He’ll plead not guilty,” his CBC News lawyer said.

Andrew Clark is described by American investigators as being co-lider of a transnational drug smuggling empire, along with the former Canadian wedding of Ryan Olympic Snowboarder. The wedding has been added recently (new window) At the FBI list with 10 most coming fugitives, with a $ 10 million reward for information that led to his arrest.

Clark, 34 years old, has been transferred to US custody (new window) Last month, in an unprecedented Mexican extradition operation, which concerns the cards related to the cartel. The strongly armed troops in pickup trucks went down on a restaurant with malls in the Guadalajara area for Clark’s arrest in October, according to the social media video checked by CBC News.

Clark, who previously lived in the Toronto area, made his first appearance at the US Federal Court in Phoenix last week. He is scheduled to be transported to Los Angeles to be tried for eight charges of crime related to an alleged conspiracy of cocaine trafficking and four killings.

All four killings, including those of the couple in Caudon, took place in Ontario, but are being prosecuted in the United States, because they were performed in support of a criminal scheme with roots in California.

This will be a pleading not guilty, La La, Clark, Matthew Lombard lawyer, said in an email.

Property records and online posts suggest that Clark sold his house in Burlington, ont., And he moved to Mexico in 2022. In a photograph distributed by American prosecutors, he is seen wearing a city from Toronto Llayard. A municipal spokesman refused to say if Clark has previously worked for the city.

Authorities said that the wedding and alleged dollars’ wedding and alleged network of Clark-Logged by the notorist Cartel Sinaloa in Mexico used stash houses in California to help move tons of cocaine and fentanyl throughout North America.

Details about the extended FBI investigation, presented in judicial documents, read as a Hollywood scenario.

US federal agents accompanied a former drug dealer in Toronto, where he wore a registration device to meet with co-conspirator suspects at a car body store. In California, investigators have registered the National Guard to supervise a cocaine agreement in a aircraft.

GRC said the wedding, 43, Continues to represent one of the greatest threats organized by crime for Canada, even as a fugitive.

Investigators said the wedding and Clark orchestrated the murder of November 2023 (new window) From Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, an Indian couple visiting their children in the North -Vest Toronto. Their 28 -year -old daughter, Jaspret Kaur Sidhu, witnessed ravages and was shot 13 times. She survived but suffered lesions that change life, said the police.

Authorities said the innocent family was wrongly targeted on a stolen drug transport. The army was not identified.

In judicial documents, US prosecutors claim that Clark subsequently sent a Hitman from Toronto, known as Sir perfect a list of targets and arranged for him to participate Military training in Mexico last year. Subsequently, the alleged gun, Malik Damion Cunningham, told Clark: I am what you now call elite because of your brother.

Days later in a Niagara Falls, ont. plus expenses. The encrypted communications suggest that Clark has provided the shooter two Glock hand weapons and a 2023 Ford Explorer as an escape vehicle, according to judicial documents.

A key informant FBI met with the wedding and Clark in a Mexico City Starbucks in January 2024, as part of the investigation. According to the judicial documents, the man wore a thread and recorded Clark explaining that he was sending two to three tons of cocaine in Canada per month, including 600 kilograms in Alberta.

The wedding, Clark and the other 14 alleged accomplices were accused of a great federal jury in California last year. Four co-insults including Cunningham, remain in arrest in Ontario and face extradition in the US

Another alleged accomplice, Gurpret Singh, is scheduled to appear on Thursday in an instance in Downtown Toronto, while demanding to be released on bail, waiting for extradition. American prosecutors asked against the release of Singh, saying that they show a substantial flight risk.

Investigators are aware that the wedding continues to pull drugs while hiding, US assistant lawyers Maria Jhai and Lyndi Allsop wrote in a letter from February 21 and filed as an exhibition at the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario. The wedding should not be given access to an additional loyalist by releasing Singh on bail.

Prosecutors claim that the wedding had to intervene to ensure the release of Singh last summer, after being abducted by the members of the Cartel from Mexico with a drug debt of $ 600,000.

Thomas Daagle (new window) · CBC news