Ryan James Wedding's Early Sinaloa Cartel Links Part 2: Operation Harrington, Catboy & Russian Mike

 "Socalj" for Borderland Beat

A 2015 Canadian indictment charged the former Olympic snowboarder as part of Operation Harrington. The RCMP believed at the time he had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and Iranian-linked money launderers, via his now ex-wife. Wedding fled to Mexico in 2015 to avoid the charges that were the result of a lengthy undercover operation targeting several Canadian traffickers.

While the 2015 Canadian indictment focused primarily on Canadian based traffickers, it would take another 4 years until the full extent of their connections to the Sinaloa Cartel would be revealed by Colombian trafficker-turned witness Alex Cifuentes-Villa during his testimony at the 2019 trial of "El Chapo," and the sentencing memo of a Canadian trafficker known as "Russian Mike" the same year.

Part 1 of Ryan James Wedding's Early Cartel Links can be read here

Back in February 2014, Ryan Wedding had been out of US federal prison for over two years and had been living back in Canada after the US agreed he could finish his sentence there. He was, at least on paper, broke. Wedding filed for bankruptcy then and said in a sworn statement that he was unemployed.

However, Wedding was leasing a brand new Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup truck, and he was living with his wife, whom he married while in prison, in a gated condo complex in Coquitlam, British Columbia.

"I, due to being in prison for several years, unable to work and contribute to the household, was unable to fulfil my financial obligations as they became due," Wedding wrote. He declared neither of them had any income. Publicly, he was only receiving "financial support from family members."

His wife at the time, had been previously implicated in a kidnapping for ransom in 2012 and later tied to a large scale marijuana bust in 2020. She was also suspected of being involved in money laundering.

Soon, in early 2015, Wedding would be recorded by an undercover RCMP agent, nicknamed "Joe" claiming that he and the network he worked for could help supply 5 tons of cocaine for the agent to smuggle.

That network was ran at the time by a fellow Canadian, Stephen Tello, also known as "Catboy" who was initially connected to Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes-Villa, described as a former "right-hand man" of "El Chapo."

El Chapo and Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes-Villa with his wife Valentina.

Russian Mike & Catboy

Alex Cifuentes-Villa, who turned government witness and testified against "El Chapo," said he first started setting up Chapo’s Canadian deals in 2008, as he “had a friend who was Colombian-Canadian and he had clients there.” 

By 2011, Chapo sought to further expand his trafficking operation in Canada because the price per kilogram of cocaine was higher in Canada than in the United States. At the time, cocaine in Los Angeles or Chicago sold for $25,000 a kilo. In Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal it went for more than $35,000 a kilo.

Chapo informed Colombian trafficker turned witness Alex Cifuentes, that they were earning between $3 million and $4 million per week selling narcotics in Canada and he tasked him to help.

In March 2013, dual Ukrainian-Canadian citizen Mykhaylo Koretskyy, known as “Russian Mike,” travelled to Mazatlan to meet with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman and Cifuentes-Villa.

In the sentencing memo filed in his US case by Koretskyy said he only got mixed up with smuggling cocaine because “his business had fallen into arrears, and he had borrowed a large amount of money” from a man only identified as Sergei.

“When Sergei demanded repayment and Mr. Koretskyy did not have the money, Sergei demanded he participate in the instant conspiracy,” the memo said.

He said “Sergei” introduced him to Stephen Tello, who was supposed to accompany Koretskky to Mexico to meet their Sinaloa contacts in 2013.

Stephen Tello

But Tello missed his flight and Koretskyy “ended up traveling alone to meet with the most powerful drug cartel in the entire world,” his sentencing memo said.

Koretskyy said he was “transported blindfolded an hour and a half into the Sinaloan countryside to a warehouse to meet Alex Cifuentes, "El Chapo’s" right-hand man.”

“Mr. Koretskyy was surrounded by over 40 men armed with rifles and asked by Alex if he knew who El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel were. Mr. Koretskyy answered 'no' and the men laughed. Alex showed him news articles on a tablet and it dawned on Mr. Koretskyy how deeply his desperation had taken him." his sentencing memo stated.

“After a brief discussion of the cartel’s plans for Canada, he was given a Blackberry to coordinate and flown back to Canada.” Koretskyy was given the codename "Cobra," by El Chapo and his associates, 

The US Attorney said that Koretskyy is minimizing his role in drug smuggling, when in reality he “helped Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel expand its reach through the United States north to the fertile Canadian market.

“In the process, he distributed and conspired to distribute hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, enough individual doses of poison to destroy countless families and communities.”

Koretskyy was a suspected “major” trafficker for Guzman and others at the time running millions of dollars worth of cocaine from the U.S. into Canada via commercial semi-trucks, a tactic used by Wedding and others to this day.

The memo noted that Koretskyy “describes only part of the (Mexican) trip, admitting that he met with Alex Cifuentes but failing to acknowledge that he also met with Chapo.”

And it said the Canadian’s claim that it was Sergei who got him involved doesn’t ring true.

“Incredulously, he claims that he had no prior involvement in the cocaine trade before flying down to Mexico to meet with the leaders of the largest and most violent cocaine distribution organization in the world, and goes so far as to claim that he did not even recognize Chapo’s name before this meeting. This defies common sense.”

“They discussed the price of cocaine in Canada, how the defendant could transport cocaine for the cartel through Canada, and how much money the defendant would be paid,” a sentencing memo filed by the U.S. Attorney said. “The defendant then participated in at least three loads of cocaine with the cartel.”

An arrest warrant was issued for Koretskyy in 2015. However he was not arrested until 2018 when he flew from Toronto to the island of Curcao after catching his Interpol Red Notice. The RCMP has not commented on why he had not been arrested until years later and why he was allowed to fly from Toronto.

Koretskyy was indicted in New York with "El Chapo," Alex Cifuentes-Villa and Stephen Tello. In 2019 at his US trial, Koretskyy was being represented by longtime lawyer for "El Chapo" and his sons, Jeffrey Lichtman.

In court, Alex said Chapo eventually left the Canadian side of things to him. Stephen Tello was his Canadian “worker,” Alex said. Alex would coordinate deliveries to Canadian wholesalers and collect the proceeds, then re-send this cash to Colombia and Ecuador to buy more drugs.

One example was a 6,000-kilogram load was sent from Ecuador to Canada, via the Pacific route by ship. Cifuentes said the cocaine often stopped in the U.S. en-route to Canada, with truck drivers stopping off in Los Angeles to take on board their northbound loads.

Alex told the court he had travelled to Canada himself several times, and used an array of fake names, fake credit cards and fake bank accounts during from 2007 until his 2013 arrest and cooperation with the US.

Alex had his own phone dedicated to the Canadians, and would translate for Chapo at meetings with them. Their operation saw cocaine and meth go from the U.S. to Canada in “trailers, also by helicopter, and over the Pacific Ocean to Vancouver,” he said.

At one point, the Sinaloa Cartel planned to cross drugs over an area Alex called “Lake Vermont” by renting houses on both the U.S. and Canadian sides, each with a dock for boats. Given the geography of the area in question, it is likely he meant Lake Champlain.

Chapo sought to have Tello killed in 2013.

Potential Hells Angels Hit

The Canadian drug trafficker Stephen Tello, who had missed his flight to Mexico with Koretskyy, was nearly murdered on the orders of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who suspected the former real estate agent was stealing from him.

To do the hit, Chapo and Alex Cifuentes looked to the Canadian Hells Angels.

Alex said they made “dozens of millions” from Canadian sales. But Chapo became suspicious that Tello was mishandling the Canadian side of the funds.

“Well, Stephen Tello, I mean there had been many complaints that I had gotten from Joaquin and also from Andrea herself, that he was stealing in Canada,” Alex said, according to court transcripts. “He was stealing the product or the profit of the drug sale.”

Chaop had been told about Tello's failings by other “workers” in Canada and gave the order to Alex to have Tello killed. Alex tried to convince Tello to come to Mexico, but Tello turned him down. Previously, Tello had travelled to Mexico several times to Culiacan, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and Cancun, meeting with Sinaloa Cartel traffickers often.

Chapo then asked Alex and his wife Valentina “to see if she could get us a person in Canada who could kill Tello." Alex said he “had some appointments pending with the Hells Angels, and it was likely that I would do that through them.”

However, Alex was soon arrested towards the end of 2013 and the killing never occurred. 

Tello, was arrested during the Operation Harrington raids in April of 2015, and in 2018 received 15 years in prison. He had also been indicted by the United States at the time of his arrest as well alongside Russian Mike, Alex and Chapo.

Also charged at the time of the Harrington raids was Ryan James Wedding alongside Philipos Kollaros, who was later shot to death in Montreal in 2018. Le Journal de Montréal reported that Kollaros had often been seen in Montreal with Valentina, the ex-wife of Alex Cifuentes-Villa.

A 2015 map outlines cocaine routes into Canada via Mexico/US and directly from South America.

Operation Harrington

The Canadian sting that brought down Tello and 14 others, causing Wedding to flee to Mexico, was a two-year undercover operation which began in the spring of 2013 by the Nova Scotia RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit.

Operation Harrington first targeted Gary Meister of Nova Scotia and Jahanbakhsh Meshkati of Alberta, both suspected of being major drug trafficking figures. It expanded from there. Jahanbakhsh Meshkati was never charged during Harrington as he was shot dead in August 2014 in White Rock, B.C. It was Meshkati who first connected Stephen Tello to the undercover RCMP.

Cuong “Andy” Hoang, a man RCMP believed was backing Tello financially, was also murdered in Alberta in January 2015.

According to court records, Philip Kollaros said he’d brought the “man in charge.” As his former boss, Meshkati, had been gunned down the year before. The new boss, Kollaros said, was Ryan Wedding.

In January 2015, inside Bier Markt, a beer hall in Montreal, Ryan Wedding sat down with a man called “Joe." Joe boasted of his status as a maritime trafficker. A plan to smuggle hundreds of kilos of cocaine into Canada was discussed. Joe, however, was an undercover RCMP officer.

Seemingly unaware, Wedding allegedly spoke openly to "Joe" about scale: first, the shipments would be a few hundred kilograms. And if that succeeded, a so-called “mega-import” of up to 5,000 kilograms, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would follow. 

One of Wedding's associates told an undercover informant "that he had 15 tons of cocaine to get out of Venezuela as soon as possible and that his guys were ready," according to court documents. He asked the undercover agent what kind of boat he’d be using, its storage capacity, and how they’d get it onto smaller fishing boats, which would head to Newfoundland. From there, they’d transfer the cocaine into trucks headed for Montreal.

Authorities stated that according to their investigations, at least 1.8 tons of cocaine that passed through their network was seized.

On March 13, 2015, Stephen Tello met the same "Joe" at a steakhouse in Toronto. Joe told Tello he could smuggle huge amounts of cocaine into Canada. He could have drugs collected at sea in the Caribbean, he said, before swapping them onto fishing trawlers closer to Newfoundland. The two had met before, but their first deal hadn’t worked out.

During Harrington, undercover officers even travelled to the Caribbean to pose as would-be cocaine transporters, meeting with Guyanese suppliers. Court records show RCMP agents exchanged messages with unwitting Harrington suspects using encrypted Blackberry-based systems.

In April 2015, the French navy intercepted a supply boat near Antigua carrying 212 kilos, which had a street value of about $10 million. Three days later, the RCMP carried out coordinated raids across Canada.

Charges were laid in eight conspiracies to bring cocaine to the east coast of Canada from Antigua, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and the U.S., and four separate trafficking investigations were launched. Two government employees were charged one from the Canadian Coast Guard (Meister’s brother), the other a civilian employee of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Post Harrington

Several of Wedding’s associates were ultimately arrested as a result of the investigation. Police also seized more than 200 kilograms of cocaine. But when officers arrived at Wedding’s downtown condo with a warrant, he had already slipped away.

It’s believed he fled Canada and likely headed straight for Mexico. Over the next decade, investigators allege, Wedding built one of North America’s most prolific cocaine-trafficking organizations, generating more than $1 billion annually. He also grew a hardened reputation for enforcing loyalty through intimidation and alleged murder.

After the Harrington arrests, Canadian authorities worried for their officer's safety. During a preliminary hearing an unknown man sitting in court was suspected of trying to photograph the undercover RCMP officer known as Joe, who had led the case.

Philip Kollaros was killed in 2018 shortly after being released from prison in Canada.

Kollaros wasn’t as fortunate as Wedding to get away. He ultimately pleaded guilty and served a prison sentence. Just after his prison release, Kollaros was shot dead in November 2018 at a restaurant in Montreal’s Little Italy.

Tello, the former Toronto real estate agent was convicted of importing cocaine in the Harrington case was sentenced to 15 years in 2018.

Sources Borderland Beat, National Post, National Post, CBC, CBC, Journal de Montreal, CBC, Rolling Stone

Categories: Canada, cocaine, FBI, ryan james wedding, sinaloa cartel