Ontario Man Handed 20-Year US Prison Term for Leading Cross-Border Drug Ring

The FBI in Los Angeles published this image showing drugs seized in connection with an investigation into a Brampton man accused of trafficking drugs from the United States into Canada. Guramrit Sidhu, 63, plead guilty this spring to one count of participating in a continuing criminal enterprise. He has been in U.S. custody since 2024 and was sentenced to 20 years in federal custody this week. FBI handout photoAn Ontario man has been sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. federal prison for heading a criminal organization that smuggled drugs valued at approximately $17 million from the United States into Canada in just one month.Brampton, Ont., resident Guramrit Sidhu was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt on July 9 after pleading guilty earlier this year to leading a drug ring from September 2020 to February 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a July 9 press release.Brampton, Ont. resident Guramrit Sidhu was sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. federal prison for heading a criminal organization that smuggled drugs from the United States into Canada. FBI handout photoSidhu, 63, was arrested on an international warrant in January 2024 alongside four other suspects identified by police as being connected to a drug trafficking network operating between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. He was extradited to the United States in October of the same year.His plea agreement with a California court says Sidhu engineered the distribution of eight different drug shipments that included 523 kilograms of methamphetamine and 347 kilograms of cocaine between Sept. 13 and Oct. 24 of 2022.“After buying the bulk quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine in the U.S., Sidhu arranged for the narcotics’ transportation into Canada via long-haul semi-trucks for further distribution,” the attorney’s office said. A federal indictment issued in January 2024 noted that “dozens” of trucking companies conducted multiple border crossings from the United States into Canada through the Detroit Windsor Tunnel, the Buffalo Peace Bridge, and the Blue Water Bridge.Sidhu also provided telephone numbers and serial numbers on bills of currency for couriers to use as a “token for identification purposes during the delivery and transportation of the cocaine and methamphetamine,” the U.S. attorney said.Sidhu and his accomplices then retrieved the cocaine and methamphetamine from various locations across Canada for further distribution, the press release said.Sidhu was the lead defendant in the 2024 federal indictment that saw 19 people from Canada, the United States, and Mexico charged for their alleged roles in the organized crime syndicate.Also charged was Roberto Scoppa, a Montreal man that authorities have described as a large-scale Canadian trafficker and a figure within the Italian Mafia. Investigators alleged Scoppa was buying “massive quantities of drugs on a wholesale basis,” the U.S. attorney said.Scoppa was one of the men arrested by the RCMP at the same time as Sidhu. Also arrested were Ayush Sharma of Brampton, Subham Kumar of Calgary, and Ivan Gravel Gonzalez, a resident of both Trois-Rivières, Que., and the Dominican Republic.Sidhu was the seventh person to plead guilty in connection with the investigation, the attorney’s office said. Other defendants have received federal prison sentences varying from 27 months to nine years.