A Brampton man has pleaded guilty in a major U.S. drug trafficking case after American authorities said he led a cross-border criminal network that moved more than 850 kilograms of methamphetamine and cocaine from the United States into Canada, with the seized narcotics estimated to be worth as much as $17 million.
Guramrit Sidhu, 62, a Canadian national from Brampton, Ont., entered a guilty plea to one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, according to a news release issued by the FBI in Los Angeles.
U.S. authorities allege Sidhu led the organization from September 2020 to February 2023, overseeing the purchase and movement of bulk quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine in the United States before arranging for the drugs to be transported into Canada for further distribution.
Court records cited in the plea agreement show the operation intensified during a roughly one-month period between Sept. 13, 2022, and Oct. 24, 2022. During that time, investigators seized eight separate drug loads linked to the organization, totaling about 523 kilograms of methamphetamine and 347 kilograms of cocaine.
Those shipments, all intercepted by law enforcement, carried an estimated wholesale value of between $15 million and $17 million.
American investigators said Sidhu used long-haul semi-trucks to move the narcotics across the border. He also allegedly supplied couriers with telephone numbers and serial numbers from currency bills, which were used as identification tokens during handoffs tied to the transport and delivery of the drugs.
Authorities said Sidhu and his co-conspirators later retrieved the shipments from locations in Canada and prepared them for broader distribution.
Sidhu was first named as the lead defendant in a 23-count federal indictment unsealed in January 2024. He has remained in U.S. federal custody since October 2024, when he was extradited from Canada.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9 before United States District Judge John A. Kronstadt. Under U.S. law, Sidhu faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and could receive a life sentence.
The FBI said Sidhu is the seventh defendant to plead guilty in the case. Other accused individuals have already been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 27 months to 108 months.
The investigation involved multiple agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico, including the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department, LA IMPACT, the RCMP, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
