Whereas the FBI hunts Canadian fugitive Ryan Marriage ceremony, U.S. authorities are warning he stays a risk and certain nonetheless has a staff of contract killers on the prepared.
Marriage ceremony, who competed for Canada as a snowboarder on the 2002 Olympic Video games, is accused of working a violent, $1-billion US transnational legal enterprise. He stays on the lam whereas dealing with homicide and drug trafficking fees in California.
Between them, Marriage ceremony and his high lieutenant, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, are accused of orchestrating at the very least 4 killings in southern Ontario, together with the mistaken-identity shootings of the Sidhu household in November 2023.
A court docket submitting reviewed by CBC Information exhibits U.S. prosecutors on Thursday sought further protections for the identities of confidential informants and co-operating witnesses within the case, highlighting the danger they might face if their names had been revealed.
“It is a complicated case involving a complicated drug-trafficking group, whose leaders have proven a callous disregard for human life, together with … deploying hitmen to execute perceived rivals or enemies,” Los Angeles-based assistant U.S. legal professional Maria Jhai wrote.
“Marriage ceremony is at massive, presumably with the identical entry to encrypted technique of communication and community of hitmen that enabled the charged murders.”
Based on an indictment unsealed in October, Marriage ceremony and Clark used the encrypted messaging app Threema to run their operation from Mexico. The cartel-linked community allegedly saved medicine in Los Angeles stash homes and moved 54 tonnes of Colombian cocaine a 12 months via North America, together with to the Toronto space.
Whereas Clark was arrested in Mexico in October, U.S. authorities have mentioned Marriage ceremony, 43, could also be hiding out in the identical nation or anyplace in Latin America. The FBI is providing a reward of as much as $50,000 US for data resulting in his arrest and extradition.
An unnamed co-operating witness — who met with Marriage ceremony and Clark in Mexico Metropolis in January 2024 — is essential to the prosecution. A press release of info filed Thursday in Ontario Superior Court docket in Toronto reveals the witness “trafficked medicine with Marriage ceremony for greater than a decade” and agreed to work with investigators in 2023.
The indictment additionally refers to a confidential supply who posed as a member of the legal community, infiltrated the group’s encrypted chats and supplied proof to U.S. authorities.
Hardeep Ratte, described by U.S. prosecutors because the Canadian transportation chief for Marriage ceremony’s drug trafficking community, appeared in a Toronto court docket on Friday for the second day of his bail hearing. U.S. prosecutors are looking for to extradite Ratte and three different Canadians detained in Ontario for his or her alleged roles within the legal enterprise.
The FBI tells CBC Information it has been receiving tips about the attainable whereabouts of Canadian former Olympic snowboarder and suspected drug lord Ryan Marriage ceremony who can also be wished in reference to three Toronto-area murders.
A minimum of 2 hitmen employed for Ontario killings
Court docket information determine Malik Damion Cunningham, who glided by the alias “Mr. Excellent,” because the Toronto-based hitman employed by Clark to kill “an inventory of targets.” He is charged with homicide within the April 2024 capturing demise of 29-year-old Randy Fader within the reputed drug trafficker’s driveway in Niagara Falls, Ont.
In all, the RCMP mentioned 10 Canadians had been arrested or sought by authorities in relation to Marriage ceremony’s alleged empire.
It isn’t clear who pulled the set off in November 2023, when at the very least one gunman burst right into a rented residence in Caledon, Ont., and fatally opened fireplace on Jagtar Sidhu, 57, and his 55-year-old spouse, Harbhajan, who had been visiting from India.
Their daughter, Jaspreet, 28, witnessed the rampage and was shot 13 instances. She survived, however suffered what police describe as “life-altering accidents.
Investigators mentioned the Sidhu household was mistakenly focused within the capturing — which they allege was ordered by Marriage ceremony and Clark — over an obvious stolen cocaine cargo.
Whereas investigators work to determine the Sidhu couple’s shooter, they have been capable of eradicate at the very least one potential suspect. Court docket information present Cunningham, the alleged hitman, was in custody for a separate assault and tried homicide when the household was shot.
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