Huge North American cocaine trafficking network linked to Mississauga murder: police

A man arrested earlier this month in Mexico in connection with a 2023 double murder in Caledon and a Brampton murder in May is also one of two men charged in a Mississauga slaying earlier this year, Canadian and U.S. law enforcement officials said on Thursday.

A vast transnational cocaine trafficking network stretching from Colombia and Mexico to Southern California, other parts of the U.S. and into Canada is believed to be linked to multiple murders and shootings in Mississauga, Caledon and Brampton in the last year or so.

Several sweeping police investigations, including those run by Peel Regional Police, Ontario Provincial Police and the FBI in the U.S., tell a complex story fit for the big screen that involves stolen drug shipments leading to several “retaliation” murders (some of which reportedly targeted the wrong people) and now an international manhunt for a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder.

Andrew Clark, 34, a Canadian citizen living in Mexico, was arrested by Mexican police on Oct. 8, the FBI said during a news conference Thursday in Los Angeles.

In addition to charges of running a criminal enterprise and conspiring to possess, distribute and export cocaine, he’s also accused in an April 1 murder in Mississauga, details of which have not been released.

Malik Damion Cunningham, 23, described by police only as a Canadian resident, is also charged in connection with the Mississauga slaying.

Meanwhile, Clark is also one of two men charged with ordering the Nov. 20, 2023 murders of a couple inside their Caledon home and being involved in the May 18 slaying of a Brampton man over a drug debt.

Ryan James Wedding, 43, also a Canadian citizen living in Mexico, is being hunted by police on charges related to the same incidents. Wedding was a member of the Canadian Winter Olympic snowboarding team that competed in the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

Police said the Caledon husband and wife who were shot to death in a supposed retaliation for a stolen drug shipment were wrongly targeted and had nothing to do with the drug ring or other criminal activity.

While U.S. authorities didn’t reveal details about the May 18 murder, Peel police said in a news release issued late Thursday that Mohammed Zafar, 39, of Brampton, was shot to death at a home near Mississauga Road and Sandalwood Parkway in Brampton.

Wedding, like Clark, is also accused of running a criminal enterprise and conspiring to possess, distribute and export cocaine.

More than a dozen other people have also been charged by U.S. law enforcement for “allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation.”

Police south of the border said the drug trafficking network “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California to Canada and other locations in the United States.”

U.S. investigators added those believed to be the leaders 0f the drug operation “orchestrated multiple murders in furtherance of these drug crimes.”

Last year, OPP and Peel Regional Police launched a joint operation called Project Midnight following the shooting deaths of international student Jagraj Singh in Mississauga and the double murder in Caledon.

Investigators believe the two murder investigations are linked, and that the victims were targeted by mistake.

Singh, who had only recently arrived in Canada, was shot and killed last Nov. 15 while working at night at a business in an industrial area near Winston Churchill Boulevard and Royal Windsor Drive in Mississauga.

Investigators said earlier Singh wasn’t the intended target of the attack and was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”