Former Crew Canada Olympian-turned-fugitive Ryan Marriage ceremony remains to be alive and energetic within the drug commerce whereas on the run from the FBI, in keeping with U.S. authorities.
The revelation is included in a letter from federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, not too long ago filed as proof in Superior Court docket in Toronto and reviewed by CBC Information. Within the memo, the prosecutors warn towards granting bail to Gurpreet Singh, one in all Marriage ceremony’s alleged accomplices in custody in Ontario and going through extradition to the U.S.
“Investigators are conscious that Marriage ceremony continues to visitors medicine whereas in hiding,” assistant U.S. attorneys Maria Jhai and Lyndsi Allsop write within the three-page letter dated Feb. 21. “Marriage ceremony shouldn’t be granted entry to an extra loyalist by means of the discharge of Singh on bail.”
Marriage ceremony, 43, who competed for Canada as a snowboarder on the 2002 Olympic Video games in Utah, is listed as one of many FBI’s most-wanted fugitives. He faces federal fees associated to a few murders, a cocaine trafficking conspiracy and for “main a unbroken legal enterprise.”
U.S. prosecutors accuse the Thunder Bay, Ont., native of working a $1-billion US drug-smuggling community with ties to Mexico’s infamous Sinaloa cartel. Wished by the RCMP on separate fees since 2015, Marriage ceremony is believed to be hiding out in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America.
In response to U.S. prosecutors, Marriage ceremony took credit score for negotiating Singh’s launch final summer time, after the Toronto-area man was kidnapped by cartel members in Mexico over a $600,000 drug debt. The episode was first revealed at Singh’s bail listening to final week in a downtown Toronto courtroom.
U.S. prosecutors say Singh and a companion travelled to Culiacan, the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, no later than July 29, 2024, to satisfy with a cartel chief to resolve the debt dispute. On Aug. 2, Singh “reported that that they had been kidnapped and tied up and had been given till the top of the day to pay the debt,” in keeping with prosecutors Jhai and Allsop.
Court docket paperwork lay out what purportedly occurred subsequent: Singh’s spouse collected roughly $400,000 towards a ransom fee to the cartel, and obtained Marriage ceremony’s help. In encrypted communications, Marriage ceremony stated he would negotiate the discharge of Singh, who confirmed by Aug. 7 he had been freed.
U.S. prosecutors warn Singh poses a “substantial” flight danger, and that the kidnapping incident suggests he and his spouse now owe a debt to Marriage ceremony. “Have been Singh to flee, and develop into a fugitive himself, he would have each incentive to hunt Marriage ceremony’s safety, as he has performed earlier than,” the prosecutors wrote.
In response to courtroom paperwork, Singh and his co-defendant Hardeep Ratte, who can also be Singh’s uncle, are accused of working a transportation community that helped Marriage ceremony transfer lots of of kilograms of cocaine from stash homes in California to Canada. Singh and Ratte purportedly mentioned the association at a gathering recorded final 12 months by a key FBI witness at an auto physique store in Brampton, Ont.
The identical witness — a former affiliate of Marriage ceremony — flew to satisfy with Singh within the United Arab Emirates, in keeping with a abstract of the prosecution’s case filed in courtroom. U.S. prosecutors allege Singh has “in depth organized crime connections inside Dubai, together with relationships with members of the Kinahan gang, which is a widely known, violent organized crime group working all through the world.”
Singh, 31, can also be alleged to have been concerned in a scheme to ship stolen high-end automobiles to Dubai by means of the port of Montreal.
His bail listening to is scheduled to renew subsequent week.
U.S. prosecutors declined to touch upon a Toronto Star report that the FBI’s key witness was Canadian-Colombian Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, who was assassinated in a Medellin, Colombia, restaurant in January.
The witness was anticipated to testify at trial. It is not clear how his reported killing will have an effect on the prosecution of Singh and Marriage ceremony’s 13 different alleged accomplices arrested in latest months.
CBC Information has reported extensively on the case since final fall, when the sweeping U.S. indictment was unsealed. Earlier developments embody:
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Andrew Clark, the Canadian nicknamed “The Dictator” — described by prosecutors as Marriage ceremony’s “second-in-command” — was transferred to U.S. custody final week after his arrest in Mexico.
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Whereas in jail in 2011, Marriage ceremony married a B.C. businesswoman who was later named in two investigations involving cash laundering. On the time, Marriage ceremony seemed to be forging ties that put him on the crossroads of Mexican cartels and Iranian-linked legal networks.
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One other Canadian co-defendant was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on his Florida mansion, as soon as owned by music star DJ Khaled. Nahim Jorge Bonilla is accused of transport meth to Quebec to settle a drug debt with Marriage ceremony.
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