How Canada’s weak laws and fragmented underworld enabled a global drug empire.

In Brief by Probe International

For the original report, see: ‘Seriously Missed Opportunities’: RCMP Roadblocked U.S. Probes as Lethal Kingpin Ryan Wedding Consolidated Power by Sam Cooper | The Bureau

Canadian investigative journalist Sam Cooper looks at how Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympian turned global drug kingpin, was able to leverage Canada’s porous infrastructure and fragmented underworld to build a transnational empire linking Mexican cartels, Iranian state-backed launderers, and Chinese precursor suppliers.

Cooper exposes how Wedding’s operations thrived on systemic vulnerabilities, including: the domination of Indo-Canadian trucking firms in cross-border drug logistics, aided by lax licensing oversight and alleged bribery in driver training systems, while provincial data reveals a surge in truck-related fatalities. Cooper points to the struggle in Ontario and B.C. to regulate commercial transport as symptomatic of broader failures. Recent Canadian investigations—including Alberta’s Project Cobra, Toronto’s Project Brisa, and Mississauga’s Project Pelican—reveal Wedding’s coordination of large-scale drug trafficking through Indo-Canadian trucking firms, reportedly moving thousands of kilograms of narcotics weekly via semi-trailer networks. Meanwhile, Quebec police note cartels bypass traditional mafia hierarchies, empowering street gangs via direct supply chains.

After a 2009 cocaine-trafficking conviction in the U.S., Cooper tracks Wedding’s deepened ties with Cartel Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa Cartel operatives, and how Canada’s lax regulatory environment enabled Wedding to flood markets with cheap cocaine while embedding Iranian encryption tech in Vancouver to secure cartel communications. Wedding’s ascent through his networks, tied to executed associate Jahanbakhsh Meshkati’s port control and Halifax cocaine shipments, reflects Canada’s unique value to cartels: a G7 nation with critical infrastructure, weak enforcement, and networks blending Hells Angels, Iranian operatives, and Chinese chemical suppliers, cement the country’s status as a narco-state enabler.

Go to the publisher’s website here for the report in full.