The inside story of Ryan Wedding's 'right-hand man' who helped take him down

A yr agone, Ryan wedding party was on the go and equitation high.

According to investigators, he celebrated the January 2025 shooting of an FBI witness in Colombia by sending around a picture of the man's lifeless body and bragging about how he killed the "rat."

A lawyer in Ontario had allegedly assured Wedding that eliminating the informant would thwart the prosecution against him.

But for Wedding — the Thunder Bay, Ont., native known as Public Enemy, accused of leading a murderous drug-smuggling empire — his luck would soon turn.

His closest confidant, Andrew Clark, the Canadian who U.S. Prosecutors called Wedding's "right-hand man," would agree to act as the FBI's new informant, providing investigators with crucial evidence that would help bring down the sprawling, cartel-linked operation.

Clark, a former elevator mechanic and landlord in the Toronto area, sold his house in suburban Burlington and relocated to Mexico in 2022, according to property records and online posts. 

How Clark first connected with Wedding, a one-time Olympic snowboarder with a starkly different background, is unclear. But prosecutors in California allege Clark somehow rose through the ranks of the underworld to become second-in-command in Wedding's purported criminal enterprise.

At the height of their alliance in 2024, Clark allegedly boasted about shipping two to three tonnes of cocaine to Canada each month and, via encrypted text message, promised a contract killer in Toronto $1.5 million, "if we keep knocking em out the park quick."

Wedding and Clark have each pleaded not guilty in the U.S. To federal charges related to drug trafficking and murder, including the shooting of a couple mistakenly targeted in Caledon, Ont. The allegations against them and their co-defendants have not been proven in court.

In the days following the Jan. 31, 2025, killing of the prosecution's key witness — Montreal-born Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, shot in the head five times by an unidentified gunman at a restaurant in a Medellín, Colombia — the FBI's manhunt for Wedding ramped up. 

Wedding also began his own search for a snitch.

In October 2024, the U.S. Justice Department had unsealed an indictment for Wedding, Clark and 14 others, publicly naming them as members of a violent criminal enterprise moving truckloads of cocaine across North America. The indictment repeatedly cited an unnamed informant who'd worked with the group's leaders — Wedding and Clark — and was prepared to testify against them.

According to court documents, Wedding almost immediately suspected Acebedo-Garcia, a 42-year-old convicted ecstasy trafficker who'd met Wedding as they both served time in a Texas prison more than a decade earlier. 

By then, it was too late for Clark. 

He'd been captured earlier in October by elite Mexican security forces with the help of Interpol, in a dramatic operation involving heavily-armed troops in pickup trucks in Zapopan, Jalisco. Local media reported Clark had been dining in a restaurant in an upscale shopping complex when he was surrounded and handcuffed.

The Mexican government described Clark as a logistics operator with ties to two of the country's biggest and most notorious drug syndicates, the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel. According to the U.S. Indictment, he went by aliases including "Dictator" and "el niño problemático," or "the problem child."

By February 2025, Clark was sent to the U.S. To face charges, on a flight with 28 other cartel-linked figures. 

Joseph McNally, then the most senior federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said authorities were "grateful to have him in the United States where he will face justice."

Almost as soon as he arrived in California, Clark was spilling what he knew. And with Wedding still on the run – soon named one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives – investigators were keen for the type of insights Clark could provide. 

A summary of the U.S. Investigation filed in Ontario Superior Court as authorities sought to arrest and extradite Wedding's alleged Canadian accomplices does not name Clark as the FBI's new confidential source. But it lays out the help provided by someone fitting only Clark's description.

The documents identify the co-operating witness as a co-defendant who had "trafficked drugs with Wedding and assisted Wedding with committing multiple murders," before turning informant and meeting with investigators numerous times between February and November 2025.

The FBI first happened upon a wealth of new evidence when Mexican authorities seized Clark's cell phone following his capture. Court files say Clark had used the device to communicate with Wedding, drug couriers, a hitman and other associates, via the encrypted chat app Threema.

Asked by a collaborator about a police investigation involving an unnamed 'guy,' Clark is said to have responded "well I tried to kill him lol."

One alleged associate appeared to be of particular interest to investigators: Deepak Paradkar, a well-known Toronto-area lawyer who'd sent Clark a picture of himself. Prosecutors would go on to allege Paradkar played pivotal roles in Wedding's network by investigating drug seizures and vetting truckers who could help smuggle cocaine.

Accused drug kingpin Ryan Wedding pleads not guilty

What's more, Paradkar is accused of counselling Wedding and Clark to kill FBI informant Acebedo-Garcia so they would avoid extradition from Mexico on U.S. Charges against them.

Even after his arrest, Clark appears to have kept in touch with Wedding for several months, purportedly helping to track down Acebedo-Garcia by sending an associate from Edmonton to Colombia twice, and once to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in the weeks before the former Montrealer's assassination.

Messages on Clark's mobile phone are also said to have implicated Rolan Sokolovski in the criminal network.

A Toronto jeweller accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars of drug money, Sokolovski allegedly procured high-end items for Wedding, including an ultra-rare Mercedes said to be worth $13 million US. A lawyer for the Department of Justice Canada recently described Sokolovski as Clark’s right-hand man, effectively making him the "third in command" in Wedding's network.

A lawyer for Sokolovski has rejected the characterization. Paradkar has denied wrongdoing. 

The two men were among eight arrested in November 2025 in Canada as part of a joint FBI and RCMP takedown of Wedding's network, after the purported roles of several accused were highlighted by Clark. The men now all face extradition to the U.S. 

As for Clark, it's not clear what authorities promised him, in exchange for his co-operation with the FBI.

Last April, prosecutors stated in a court filing that they would not seek the death penalty against him. Unlike some of his co-accused, Clark's current location is not listed publicly by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.

A spokesperson for the prosecutors' office in Los Angeles and Clark’s attorney, Matthew Lombard, each did not respond to requests for comment.

Donoghue said the Justice Department can also provide the informant and their family with protection – even going so far as to give them new identities.

The former prosecutor said in an interview that if Clark acted as a co-operating witness, he would likely testify against Wedding at trial.

"It's so important for the jury to hear from someone who was part of the conspiracy," Donoghue said. "They really narrate the crime from the inside."

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