BURST
A crime blog that the FBI alleges was used by accused cocaine kingpin Ryan Wedding to set up a murder in Colombia was already the subject of a B.C. criminal investigation that started two years ago.
Gursewak Singh Bal, the founder of The Dirty Newz, was charged with nine others Wednesday in the U.S. with conspiracy to kill a government witness who was going to testify against Ryan.
In November 2023, Bal’s site posted internal police documents, prompting the earlier investigation.
At the time, the B.C. Public Safety Ministry issued a news release saying, “The Abbotsford Police Department and the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit became aware of an unauthorized display of a sensitive law enforcement intelligence document on an online social media site.”
“Upon assessment, on Nov. 22, 2023, the director of police services ordered an independent investigation … into the alleged breach of police information,” adding that the B.C. RCMP’s major crimes unit would be investigating.
The name of the site was not mentioned, but Postmedia learned from sources at the time that it was The Dirty Newz.
Dawn Roberts, the B.C. RCMP’s director of communications, said Wednesday that the investigation is still underway and progressing.
Bal, who has been living in Ontario, was one of 10 people picked up Tuesday in the second phase of a massive investigation called Project Giant Slalom into the former Olympic snowboarder’s purported criminal organization.
While Wedding, a former Metro Vancouver resident and Canadian Olympic snowboarder, remains a fugitive on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, many of his associates have now been arrested in the U.S. investigation.
The new U.S. indictment alleges Bal was paid $10,000 by Wedding associate Allistair Chapman “not to post about defendant Wedding.”
“In addition, defendant Chapman provided defendant Bal with a photograph of Victim A and paid him to post the photograph so that Victim A could be located and killed,” the indictment said.
The posts about the witness, including the photo, were made on Bal’s Instagram account on Nov. 5, 2024, and said “this guy single handedly ratted out one of the strongest underworld networks that this world has seen. Good chance, he’ll never be found again.” He also posted his text exchange with Chapman calling the victim “a snitch” and said they were looking for his location.
The payment to Bal, 31, was made in October 2024, the indictment said.
On Jan. 31, 2025, Wedding sent a message to an associate saying Victim A was dead at a Medellin, Colombia, restaurant. The same day, “Bal posted a story depicting a photograph of the restaurant and the bottom part of a body lying on the ground, and a caption that read: “(Victim A) down…” and “BOOM! Headshot.”
Bal, who earlier told Postmedia that he had lived in B.C. and left to attend Brock University in Ontario, is also charged with conspiracy to export cocaine and seven other counts with others in the Wedding crime group.
Bal boasted about his relationship with Wedding on a Telegram account. A post obtained by Postmedia said: “Ryan Wedding paid us the most out of any gangster or leader that we’ve dealt with. … Snowboarder and his team, they gave us 10,000$ and this shit isn’t a joke.”
Documents filed in the case to support the Canadian arrests this week also said an undercover RCMP officer made contact with Bal in August 2025 through one of the Dirty Newz Instagram accounts.
The officers “told Bal that he was trying to locate a ‘rat’ and needed Bal’s assistance,” and said he would be willing to pay. Bal “bragged” that he worked for “really serious people…even snowboarder and shit like these guys paid us for help.”
Bal said the fee would be “5-6 bills” to “find someone,” but extra if the undercover officer was “trying to like get (someone) blasted.”
Postmedia has had several email exchanges and calls over the years with Bal, who operated under the pseudonym 6ixademiks.
He would post copyrighted photos and stories on his site, but accuse Postmedia and other news outlets of poaching his work.
He had also provided some B.C. media outlets with videos of crimes in progress that he had obtained and posted on his site.
Blueksy: @kimbolan.bsky.social