Ontario trucker sent to prison in U.S. for hauling cocaine allegedly for Ryan Wedding’s cartel

An Ontario truck driver who was caught at the border trying to smuggle cocaine from the United States into Canada — allegedly for Ryan Wedding, the Canadian Olympic snowboarder named as an international narco mastermind — was sentenced to nine years in a U.S. prison after court proceedings draped in secrecy.

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Iqbal Singh Virk, 58, an owner-operator of a transport truck based in Brampton, Ont., admitted to a judge in Los Angeles that he helped knit a drug transportation network in Canada to an immense cocaine cartel in Mexico and the United States.

In keeping with the high stakes and high profile of the Ryan Wedding investigation — including the murder of a government witness who was cooperating with U.S. authorities in the case — Virk’s hearings featured more secretiveness than usual.

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Several documents entered into the court record were ordered sealed by the judge and cannot be read or reported on.

Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett issued protective orders over court filings that could reveal the identities of confidential informants, cooperating witnesses and cooperating defendants “who participated in the government’s investigation and provided information relevant to defendant’s sentencing,” the order says.

The orders were to protect sensitive information from unauthorized dissemination while allowing defence lawyers with enough information to adequately represent Virk. The order also refers to material marked “Attorney’s Eyes Only,” which the lawyers cannot even show their client.

Garnett also granted a secrecy motion requested by Virk to have his response to the government’s sentencing position filed under seal and not available for public viewing.

John Hanusz, Virk’s lawyer, declined to comment on the case or on how Virk was taking the sentencing decision issued against him on Wednesday.

Virk signed a plea agreement last August admitting he was part of a cocaine conspiracy comprised of members of a drug-trafficking organization who arranged with a drug transportation network to move more than 1,800 kilograms of cocaine from the Los Angeles area into Canada.

Virk was part of the transportation network and drove his long-haul truck from Ontario to California specifically to collect cocaine and hide it in a secret compartment in his truck.

He and his partner, Ranjit Singh Rowal, shared the driving, then tried to mask the purpose of their trip by loading legal goods into the truck for the return to Canada.

Virk and Rowal, however, were caught in an elaborate sting operation the FBI was running after infiltrating the ring. The man with whom Virk was arranging the cocaine pick up was really a confidential source secretly working with the FBI.

When the pair pulled their tractor-trailer up to the customs post on the U.S. side of the Blue Water Bridge, connecting Ontario and Michigan, on Aug. 28, 2024, Virk was behind the wheel and Rowal in the passenger seat.

They didn’t stand a chance of getting across as authorities were waiting for them. Customs officers were soon pulling cocaine bricks wrapped together in cellophane from a hidden slot at the rear of their trailer just above their Ontario licence plate. Stacking them on the loading bay floor, they counted 115 bricks weighing slightly more than 124 kilos. An officer estimated it was worth close to US$4 million.

The arrests of Virk and Rowal were a sign of things to come.

It turned out that they were small fry in the scheme of things as U.S., Canadian and Mexican authorities targeted an international criminal enterprise — a violent and prolific cartel authorities said was headed by Wedding.

Wedding, who competed for Team Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics, was named the mastermind behind a deluge of cocaine flowing from Colombia to Mexico and then to California where it was loaded in trucks for the drive to Canada.

Two months after the arrests of the two drivers, Wedding’s name was the first on a long list of accused in a U.S. indictment. The FBI called Wedding a modern-day Pablo Escobar or El Chapo Guzman, naming two of history’s most notorious drug lords.

The last two names on the indictment were Virk and Rowal.

Both men pleaded guilty, 10 days apart, to two charges: conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Rowal was sentenced in November to 37 months in prison.

In return for Virk’s guilty plea on two drug charges, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges and asked the judge to reduce his sentence. Since Virk faced a maximum penalty of life in prison and an $11-million fine, nine years and no fine might seem a good deal, despite it being significantly longer than his partner’s punishment.

Virk’s conviction makes it almost a certainty that he will be deported from the United States upon his release from prison. Both men are citizens of India and travelled on an Indian passport but had immigrated to Canada, where they had permanent resident status.

Wedding remains in U.S. custody, also in California, after his arrest in Mexico in January. He pleaded not guilty to multiple drug trafficking and murder charges and is awaiting trial.

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