FBI's Most Wanted Trafficker Ryan Wedding Part 3: 'Cocaine Lawyer' Deepak Paradkar Arrested

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat
From a Globe & Mail Article

According to the evidence filed in court, the Wedding organization relied on the services of a particularly motivated corrupt lawyer, whose role was of great importance.

This Ontario lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, worked directly under Ryan Wedding and was responsible for investigating drivers and circumstances in cases where their cocaine shipments were seized by authorities, procuring new transportation routes for Wedding, and paying lawyers in Canada and the United States to find out if any traffickers in the organization arrested by police were cooperating with authorities.

In October 2024, this lawyer informed Wedding and his lieutenant, who had become a police informant, that if Jonathan Acebedo Garcia were eliminated and unable to testify in court in the United States, it would cause the charges to be dropped. Subsequently, Wedding told his lieutenant that he wanted Acebedo Garcia killed and was prepared to pay $5 million to ensure it was done.

In December 2024, an alleged accomplice of Onha, Barosa Hernandez, was questioned by Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigators, and Paradkar, posing as a lawyer, subsequently called Barosa Hernandez to ask him questions about his meeting with RCMP members.

Paradkar's role also included finding and preserving the drivers' real identities so they could be forced to pay for the drugs if their shipment was ever seized by the police. One day, drivers were arrested in Arkansas, and Ryan Wedding mentioned the possibility of "silencing" a truck driver and "killing everyone involved" in the case.

The lawyer was paid for his services with large cash deposits in Toronto and with luxury watches.

"Investigators identify Paradkar as an integral member of the day-to-day operations of Wedding's drug trafficking organization. He was responsible for introducing new routes that would allow the organization to transport cocaine from Los Angeles to Canada," a U.S. investigator summarized in a sworn affidavit filed in court.

Until his arrest this week, Deepak Balwant Paradkar was known as the kind of flashy, brash defence lawyer that drug dealers in Canada paid handsomely to help keep them out of jail.

On Wednesday, Mr. Paradkar was in custody in Toronto, facing extradition to the U.S., where officials accuse him of helping an international drug boss plot the murder of a key witness.

The high-profile Mississauga lawyer, indicted as part of the drug-trafficking case against former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, has long embraced the infamy of representing notorious clients, including serial killer Dellen Millard.

He used the Instagram handle “@Cocaine_lawyer” – a nickname referred to in the indictment – and boasted about clients who beat drug charges, until a regulatory review in 2017 by the Law Society of Ontario. He has a well-known taste for luxury cars and has described trials as warfare.

“People with money hire me because I don’t do legal aid,” he once told the Hamilton Spectator.

Several Canadians have been arrested for extradition to the United States in relation to a drug trafficking probe involving Ryan Wedding, a former Team Canada Olympian turned fugitive believed to be hiding in Mexico.

But U.S. officials say his work as Mr. Wedding’s lawyer has crossed over into criminality. According to an unsealed indictment released Wednesday, he advised Mr. Wedding to murder a key witness who was set to testify against him.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, U.S. Attorney-General Pam Bondi – the top law-enforcement official in America – said the homicide in Colombia that followed his alleged advice, in January, was exceptionally deplorable.

According to authorities, the alleged murder conspiracy was hatched to help Mr. Wedding escape the reach of the U.S. charges that he has faced for the past year.

The witness, left unnamed in the indictment, is identified in Montreal court documents as Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia. He was shot five times in the head and died instantly after Mr. Wedding reportedly placed a bounty on him, authorities allege, although the indictment did not share the specific evidence against the lawyer.

“The lawyer in Canada, his lawyer advised him to kill this witness,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California told reporters in Washington. “His lawyer told him ‘if you kill this witness, the case will be dismissed.’”

The U.S. Department of Justice says Mr. Paradkar was a member of Mr. Wedding’s criminal enterprise and provided a range of illegal services to him and his drug-trafficking organization that went “beyond the scope of a normal attorney-client relationship.” Investigators say he introduced Mr. Wedding to the drug traffickers who moved his cocaine, and has also helped him arrange bribes.

The indictment says Mr. Paradkar “violated the trust of his clients and the ethics of his profession” by allowing Mr. Wedding and his associates to eavesdrop on privileged conversations between Mr. Paradkar and his other clients, some of whom Mr. Wedding wanted to kill. It says Mr. Wedding paid the lawyer with luxury watches and additional fees for these illegal services.

Toronto lawyer Ravin Pillay said Thursday that he is representing Mr. Paradkar, but could not comment on the case. Mr. Paradkar’s office was listed on Google as “permanently closed” and his LinkedIn page was taken down.

Who is Deepak Paradkar?

Born in India, Mr. Paradkar was brought to Canada at age seven by his father, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, and his mother. Mr. Paradkar got his licence to practice law in Ontario in 1993, and became known in media interviews and on social media for dishing out uncensored advice to potential clients.

“Best advice for all my clients and those who are gangstas: trust no one including your right hand. In every drug case I’ve done, there is always a rat responsible for taking you down and you won’t see it coming,” he wrote in a post on Instagram that was later taken down in 2017.

In 2014, Mr. Paradkar was investigated by the Hamilton police after he was accused of smuggling Mr. Millard’s jailhouse letters to a girlfriend who was on a court-ordered no-contact list. The lawyer was cleared of any wrongdoing, but withdrew from the case. Mr. Pillay, who had also visited Mr. Millard in jail, was similarly cleared of any wrongdoing and went on to represent him at trial.

The arrest of Mr. Paradkar at his Thornhill home has sent shock waves through the legal community. Peter German, a Canadian legal academic and anti-money-laundering expert, said lawyers have a unique position when working with clients accused of criminal acts – but cannot become facilitators in those crimes.

“This is extremely unusual to see a criminal lawyer facing allegations such as this,” he said.

“There are limits on what a lawyer can do for a client, and a lawyer can never become involved in criminality,” he said, speaking generally.

Mr. Essayli, the assistant U.S. Attorney, told reporters that it was critical for public trust that lawyers accused of working with organized crime are held accountable.

“It was very important for us to get him,” he said, “because when you have people who are officers of the court, who are lawyers, we take oaths to protect the public and defend the law.”

Mr. Paradkar’s profile on the Law Society of Ontario’s member registry says he has no regulatory history or practice restrictions. The regulator added, however, that whenever a lawyer or paralegal is charged with a serious offence, the Law Society does investigate and, if the evidence warrants, will begin regulatory proceedings.

An LSO spokesperson said specific complaints and investigations are confidential unless they result in public regulatory action.

@Cocaine_lawyer

The only public record of an LSO matter involving Mr. Paradkar dates back to 2017, when he was the subject of a regulatory meeting related to the use of his Instagram handle at the time, “Cocaine_lawyer.” In that matter, the society determined that formal regulatory proceedings were not warranted.

According to a regulatory notice issued on Dec. 5, 2017, Mr. Paradkar was accused of engaging in “improper advertising and public communications” that brought “discredit to the legal profession” with respect to his Instagram content.

The notice said a “discussion took place” about the social-media content, which featured “uncritical reference to organized crime and various illegal drugs” as well as “images of weapons of violence and ammunition.”

In addition, according to the notice, the content included a photo of Mr. Paradkar with a client at the Superior Court of Justice with the caption “Cocaine_lawyer 2.5 kilos of cocaine charges dropped.”

Members of the Law Society committee that addressed the matter expressed their concern, and Mr. Paradkar acknowledged it was inappropriate, the notice said. Ultimately, the committee “agreed the discussion was useful” and determined that Mr. Paradkar was “unlikely to conduct himself similarly in the future,” the notice said. No further action was taken.

His daughter, Chicago-based lawyer Madeline Paradkar, is now facing immigration enforcement action. The release does not detail any connection between Ms. Paradkar and her father’s alleged criminal activities.

Part 1 and Part 2 on FBI's Most Wanted Fugitive Ryan James Wedding.

Source Globe & Mail