A former Canadian snowboarder with no obvious connection to Caledon is wanted in connection with the murder of two town residents.
43-year-old Ryan James Wedding is wanted by the FBI for allegedly running an international cocaine trafficking operation. US authorities say Wedding allegedly ordered the murders of an Indian couple in the town last year. Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, 28, who was shot 13 times, survived. Her parents, Jagtar Singh Sidhu, 57, and Harbhajan Kaur Sidhu, 55, died. The shootings took place last November.
“I want to stress that the Sidhu family were completely innocent. Our investigation has determined that these three victims were mistakenly targeted and were not involved in the alleged trafficking organization,” said OPP Dep. Commissioner Marty Kearns said at a Los Angeles news conference today (Thursday).
Police say fellow Canadian Andrew Clark and Wedding ordered the murders “in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment that passed through Southern California.” Clark was arrested on Oct. 8 by Mexican law enforcement.
The Canadians, who reside in Mexico, are two of 16 defendants identified in an indictment unsealed today, which alleges that the group was running what officials described as a transnational drug trafficking operation. Officials say the defendants routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, into Canada and the United States.
Wedding competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The FBI is offering a reward of up to US$50,000 for any information leading to Wedding’s arrest.
