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A Canadian man wanted by U.S. authorities for his alleged ties to former Canadian Olympian Ryan Wedding, accused by the FBI of running a drug smuggling ring, has been arrested.
According to a Friday night social media update from the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, 33-year-old Rasheed Pascua Hossain was captured by the RCMP in Vancouver.
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The FBI said an arrest warrant was issued on Oct. 28 for Hossain, who faces cocaine and money laundering charges south of the border in relation to his alleged role in what officials call the Wedding Criminal Enterprise.
Canadian courts will have to assess any extradition requests for Hossain before he would face charges in the U.S.
The FBI said Bianca Canastillo-Madrid, 37, of Mexico City, and Tommy Demorizi, 35, of Montreal, who they believe is a fugitive in the Dominican Republic, are still wanted.
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The investigation, dubbed Operation Giant Slalom, alleges Wedding is a narco-trafficker on par with notorious drug lords like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar.
The FBI raised the reward for Wedding’s capture to $15 million on Wednesday, and have offered additional rewards for information leading to the arrests of unknown assassins who authorities said murdered a potential witness last January in Medellin, Colombia.
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Hossain’s capture comes shortly after another allegedly Wedding associate – Gursewak Singh Bal, 31, of Mississauga – was arrested on Tuesday. He is accused of accepting payment in exchange for not posting about Wedding on his website, The Dirty News, and instead shared a photo of a witness so that he could be located and killed.
The FBI seized the website as part of their investigation into alleged members and associates of Wedding.
Also arrested is Wedding’s apparent lawyer Deepak Balwant Paradkar, 62, of Thornhill, who U.S. authorities allege recommended to the fugitive that he have the witness murdered.
Others in custody in relation to the investigation are Atna Ohna, 40, of Laval, Que., Allistair Chapman, 33, of Calgary, Ahmad Nabil Zitoun, 35, of Edmonton, Edwin Basora-Hernandez, 31, of Montreal, Rolan Sokolovski, 37, of Toronto, Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, 47, of Bogota, Colombia, Yulieth Katherine Tejada, 36, of Orlando, Fla., legal permanent resident from Colombia, and Wilson Riascos, 45, of Cali, Colombia.
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