Hezbollah Links Emerge in Case of Ryan Wedding, Canadian Snowboarder-Turned-Sinaloa Cartel Smuggler
RCMP and DEA investigations linked Wedding's networks to Iranian encryption communications and Venezuela's Margarita Island, a command center for Hezbollah's narco-terror operations
LOS ANGELES, United States — Ryan James Wedding’s reputation as a daring Canadian Olympic snowboarder, with the imposing frame of an NFL linebacker—6-foot-3 and 240 pounds—only heightened his powerful aura as he descended into a deadly new career as a violent cocaine smuggler for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Operating under aliases like “Giant” and “Public Enemy,” Wedding is accused of orchestrating drug trafficking operations across North America, coordinating vast shipments of cocaine from Latin America to Canada. However, focusing solely on his outlaw-biker physique overlooks the true source of his stature in transnational criminal networks.
According to The Bureau's investigations, Wedding’s turn from world-class athlete to Northern Narco in the early 2000s was facilitated by his intimate connections to elite Iranian money launderers in Vancouver. These ties positioned him within a nexus of Hezbollah-linked networks and Latin American cartels, leveraging bases of operation in Canada and South America to threaten American security while moving cocaine and methamphetamines through cities from Miami to Los Angeles.
Wedding, along with his co-conspirators, faces a U.S. indictment for running an extensive drug trafficking operation, coordinating shipments of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico and Latin America through California to Canada. The organization is accused of storing massive cocaine shipments in Los Angeles stash houses, distributing the drugs using semi-trucks. In March 2024, the organization successfully delivered around 293 kilograms of cocaine and attempted to deliver 375 kilograms the following month before authorities intercepted the shipment.
The indictment lists 16 gangsters, including 10 Canadians, and accuses Wedding’s crime cell of orchestrating multiple murders, including the killing of two Ontario family members over a stolen drug shipment. The filing also alleges that Wedding issued death threats against the mother of a Miami music executive over drug debts. Adding to the tragedy, at a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, Ontario Provincial Police Deputy Commissioner Marty Kearns stated that the victims—Jagtar Singh Sidhu, 57, Harbhajan Kaur Sidhu, 55, and their daughter Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, 28 (who survived)—"were completely innocent.”
While much attention focuses on Wedding’s ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and Hells Angels, documents reviewed by The Bureau suggest Wedding’s links to geopolitical forces propelled his criminal rise. Operation Harrington, a two-year RCMP investigation concluded a decade ago, exposed how Iranian state-linked money launderers, with deep ties to Mexican and Colombian transnational crime, were overtaking Canadian drug networks. They employed the previously dominant Hells Angels in Vancouver as proxies, engaging in systematic killings and integrating with Italian networks like the ’Ndrangheta in Toronto and Montreal. Though publicly visible as a Sinaloa Cartel kingpin, Wedding appears to be a high-level front for more sophisticated Iranian state actors. In this regard, records suggest, Wedding’s network mirrors the case of Vancouver Hells Angel Damion Ryan, who was tasked by Iranian intelligence and mafia figures to assassinate an Iranian defector in the U.S., according to a 2023 indictment.
Much of Wedding’s operational secrecy—and ultimately his overconfidence—stemmed from his Iranian partners’ access to BlackBerry encrypted communications in western Canada. Canada’s tech landscape vulnerabilities were starkly exposed in the RCMP “insider threat” case against intelligence mole Cameron Ortis, whose leaks revealed how encrypted communications hubs in Western Canada allowed Mexican cartels and Iran-linked terror financing networks, tied to one of the world’s top money launderers, Altaf Khanani, to evade detection.
A key clue uncovered in Operation Harrington is the role of Jahanbakhsh “John” Meshkati, a Wedding associate who helped infiltrate Canadian ports to move vast quantities of drugs. Known for his ties to Iranian-backed encryption technologies, Meshkati emerged as a more critical figure in Wedding’s Sinaloa Cartel networks than previously recognized, according to a report by David Luna, a former U.S. State Department official.
"Cases have highlighted how Canadian nationals and underground currency exchanges have helped Iran evade sanctions and assisted in the laundering of funds for terrorist financing operations of both Hezbollah and Hamas," Luna’s 2023 report says. "Police investigations and wiretaps have also revealed high-profile Iranian criminal networks controlling the Vancouver port, and other Canadian ports, and partnering with Hells Angels and Mexican cartels.”
"In Toronto,” the report continues, “RCMP’s Project Harrington further revealed Iranian networks, including Jahanbakhsh Meshkati, involved with massive cartel operations. Meshkati was also known for his ‘encrypted BlackBerry businesses’ and had access to Halifax Port, where military personnel were compromised in a massive cocaine importation ring."