{"id":563446,"date":"2026-03-27T03:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T03:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/563446\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T03:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T03:06:07","slug":"brampton-man-pleads-guilty-to-leading-drug-trafficking-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/563446\/","title":{"rendered":"Brampton man pleads guilty to leading drug trafficking group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A 62-year-old Brampton man has pleaded guilty to leading a criminal organization that trafficked drugs worth up to $17 million from the United States into Canada over a one-month span.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-cdca\/pr\/canadian-national-pleads-guilty-leading-group-trafficked-more-850-kilograms-meth-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-cdca\/pr\/canadian-national-pleads-guilty-leading-group-trafficked-more-850-kilograms-meth-and\">In a news release on Thursday<\/a>, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Central District of California announced Guramrit Sidhu\u2019s guilty plea to one count of engaging in continuing a criminal enterprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He could face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment, U.S. officials said, noting that his sentencing is scheduled for July 9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">His plea agreement states that Sidhu orchestrated the distribution of eight separate drug loads, including 523 kilograms of methamphetamine and 347 kilograms of cocaine from Sept. 13, 2022, to Oct. 24, 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAfter buying the bulk quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine in the U.S., Sidhu arranged for the narcotics\u2019 transportation into Canada via long-haul semi-trucks for further distribution,\u201d the attorney\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cSidhu provided telephone numbers and serial numbers on bills of currency for couriers to use as a \u2018token\u2019 for identification purposes during the delivery and transportation of the cocaine and methamphetamine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The district attorney\u2019s office said Sidhu and his co-conspirators then retrieved the drugs from locations within Canada for further distribution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Sidhu\u2019s drug trafficking organization operated between Sept. 2020 and Feb. 2023, U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Sidhu <a href=\"https:\/\/rcmp.ca\/en\/news\/2024\/01\/940000-and-70-kg-cocaine-seized-thanks-successful-collaboration-between-rcmp-and-fbi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/rcmp.ca\/en\/news\/2024\/01\/940000-and-70-kg-cocaine-seized-thanks-successful-collaboration-between-rcmp-and-fbi\">was arrested in Jan. 2024<\/a> and was extradited to the U.S. months later in October and is the lead defendant in a 23-count federal indictment that targeted the criminal organization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">U.S. officials noted that he is the seventh defendant to plead guilty. Others have been sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from more than two years to nine years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 62-year-old Brampton man has pleaded guilty to leading a criminal organization that trafficked drugs worth up to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194339],"tags":[712,51759,49,48],"class_list":["post-563446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brampton","tag-apple-news","tag-brampton","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}