The Ben Mulroney Show - The "Wedding" the FBI is determined to crash

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

GUEST:  Calvin Chrustie   / Former senior operations officer with the RCMP / Currently Senior Partner at the Critical Risk Team If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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by giving your team a tax research tool they'll actually want to use. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ, AI for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It's Thursday, November 20th. Thank you so much for joining us. Yesterday was a very interesting day because former Olympian Ryan Wedding was front and center as the topic of conversation at a massive press conference held by Pam Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States. And Cash Patel, the head. of the FBI, where they laid out the crimes that they are accusing him of and the amounts of drugs that this man has been importing into the United States and the other alleged crimes. And so that's the story. They called him the 21st century version of El Chapo

or Pablo Escobar. He's a bad dude. And so we thought we would move the ball down the field by talking with Calvin Krusty. He's a former senior operations officer with the RCMP and currently the senior partner at the critical risk team. Calvin, welcome to the show and thank you for your service to the country.

Thank you very much, Ben, and thank you and your family for the same. So he's been on the run for a while, hasn't he? Yes, I haven't tracked the actual timeline or dates, but yes, certainly has been a subject of international interest from law enforcement. and intelligence agencies, I'm sure. How are we going to catch him?

Well, the U.S. has amazing capabilities, you know, in terms of intelligence networks and other capabilities, and I'm confident they will eventually catch him. Oh, yeah. They always get their man. That's what they say. They always get their man. But he has been on the lamb for a while.

He has been, but I think the, you know, these recent arrests and enforcement actions, you know, from Canada and the U.S. will probably reveal additional information and evidence and intelligence that will be able to be leveraged. And eventually sometimes it's just a matter of timing. Well, let's go over his story just in case people are just joining us. There's the drug trafficking. He's accused of leading an organization protected by the Sinaloa cartel,

importing approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine into the U.S. from Mexico. each year with distribution networks that go as high as Canada. Murder and attempted murder. Authorities allege that wedding order dozens of murders globally. There's the murder of a federal witness, which is brazen. The word brazen exists for this crime. And he was charged with orchestrating the January 2025 murder of the U.S. federal witness. There's also murders in Canada.

He is accused of directing the November 2023 murders of an innocent family. in Caledon, Ontario. There's witness tampering and retaliation, money laundering, aiding and abetting. I mean, this, yeah, he has certainly carved out a heck of a post-Olympic career

for himself, hasn't he? Yeah, I mean, he certainly has. And, you know, although we focus on Ryan, I think it's really important to look at, you know, who is possible networks are. You've alluded to the Cinaloa network, and possibly, you know, there's other networks that are out there also.

And, you know, usually when you see somebody of this magnitude, it's quite often the cartel, but also sometimes with the cartel and whether it be China or whether it be Iran or whether it be Russia, but often a state enabler that's facilitating it. You know, when it comes down to that much logistical support, that much financial enabling and corporate entities that are required to assist and support. Somewhere behind there, there's going to be other networks, I think. Are the Americans taking a harder look at him now than they might have been in the past? Well, I think so.

I mean, he's been around. If you look on open source, you'll see his name appearing in social media over the last decade, possibly even two decades. and we saw them on the East Coast when we've seen them in the West Coast but we've seen them on the East Coast of Canada so it's not a new name for anybody and some of the East Coast activity going back five, six, seven years ago

on Project Harrington which is reported in the media they were at the 10 tons, 20 tons so these networks and threat networks they've been around for a long time And it's just a matter of priorities, opportunities, et cetera, et cetera, to go, let's target him. And I think, you know, obviously something precipitated, a renewed interest that could have been from opportunity to increasing priorities. I think what's surprising to a lot of people is that he's a Canadian, he's a Canadian operating in a world that is not his.

you know, all the, all the movies I've ever seen about drug dealers from Mexico, they work with drug dealers from Mexico. And he, I don't, how does someone like this find his way into, into that world? And what's, and you may not have the answer to this, but what sorts of skills? What was the skill set that he had that allowed him to thrive? I don't think it's so much skill set. I think it's so much networks. And that's why I alluded to who's his network historically. How did he, get trusted and enabled in that ecosystem of transnational networks. And I think Canadians, I don't know, I've said this numerous times, but I think Canadians

really need to look in the mirror and kind of go, this is not a one-off. There's a reason if you look at some of the executive orders that were written about tariffs, if you actually look into the wording of it rather than reacting to the public discourse, you'll see that this is what they were writing about in the legal documents where these Canadian networks. They weren't talking about the fentanyl crossing the border. That was a bit of a political distraction. But if you look at there, you know, my experience is Canada hosts some of the most significant networks and ecosystems where they converge between the cartels, the Iranian networks, and the Chinese networks. So, had a...

So you think, when you, we'll go back to what you said off the top, when you said that he's probably had help. That's why he's probably been able to stay on the lamb as long as he is. And you said that it could be institutional help. What sorts, I mean, are we talking banks? Are we talking embassies? What do you think is possible? Well, I think anything's possible when we see people at that level.

When you're talking that magnitude, you could be talking about, you'll definitely be talking about financial institutions. You'll definitely be talking about lawyers. You'll also be talking about logistical companies, whether they be trucking companies, shipping companies. Also, you know, in terms of corporate help and possibly, you know, quite often is we're seeing increasing, increasing more and more and more. We're seeing, you know, our foreign adversaries, China, Russia, Iran, India, and

others that are enabling some of these as an intent to destabilize North America, continental security. And I think the Americans, if you look at the Department of Defense for the Americans, you know, they shifted a lot of their priorities this year to be focused on transnational organized crime. And my own personal experience in this is I've seen it as probably one of the most serious, acute threats impacting North America. And lastly, I'll only have about a minute left here,

but given the fact that there are crimes that were committed in Canada and his base of operations was the states, is there any sort of joint task force between the Canadians and the Americans working together? Would you expect that that would be happening or are the Americans saying, we've got everything we need on our side of the border? We don't need your help. I think there's ongoing, always ongoing activity. And I think probably what we saw yesterday,

was a strong symbolic gesture of the Canadians being present there. And I think, you know, to kudos to the commissioner of the RCMP, to, I think, recognizing that he needs to assist and support the Americans in terms of disruption of these networks, because Canada, quite frankly, doesn't have a legal framework to really reach people like Ryan Weddings, and the Americans can. And, you know, kudos to the RCMP for supporting.

All right. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us and giving an update to the Ben Mulroney Show. This has been Calvin Krusty, former senior operations officer with the RCMP, currently serving as the senior partner at the Critical Risk Team. Calvin, thank you very much. Thanks, Ben. built to last come standard heated front seats standard high ground clearance standard eyesight driver assists to help spot the scooter delivery guy texting merging and eating all at once standard parallel parking perfectly while someone watches uncommon but in a Subaru standard ish Subaru uncommon come standard hurry into your local Subaru dealership today for lease rates from

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