Mexican Cartels, US Brokers, Canadian Truckers: Mega Drugs Racket Busted

Three Indian-origin men involved in inter-country drug trafficking have been arrested in Canada and face extradition to the US, local reports suggest.

Ayush Sharma, Guramrit Sidhu, and Subham Kumar were arrested after a joint operation ‘Dead Hand’ by the Canadian cops and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are among 10 people arrested in Canada this week for drug trafficking.

The smuggling racket involved drug suppliers linked to Mexican cartels, brokers and distributors in Los Angeles, and Canadian truck drivers, US attorney Martin Estrada told a press conference.

Ayush, 25, from Brampton and Subham, 29, from Calgary allegedly worked as truck drivers, handling cross-border smuggling, while Guramrit, 60, oversaw the entire drugs transportation.

All 10 arrested in drugs cases will be extradited to the US, the report said.

Guramrit was involved in procuring huge quantities of drugs on a wholesale basis from Mexico and Los Angeles and used a trucking network to transport those to Canada, officials said. He was reportedly known as ‘King’ among his associates.

Canadian “handlers” and “dispatchers” used to make short trips to Los Angeles, where they would coordinate the pickup and delivery of methamphetamine and cocaine shipments using trucks going to Canada, they added.

The transportation network included drivers from dozens of trucking companies who crossed the US-Canada border via Detroit Windsor Tunnel, Buffalo Peace Bridge and Blue Water Bridge.

US data suggests the group trafficked nearly a kilo of cocaine, 4 kg heroin, 20 kg fentanyl, and 845 kg methamphetamine, valued at over $16 million.

The cops also confiscated 70 kg cocaine and 4 kg heroin from them on spot, besides 9,40,000 in cash.