Article content continued

What’s remarkable about Tello, and the wider Canadian case which saw him and others imprisoned, is the number of associated individuals who have since been murdered.

In August 2014, before he could be charged, the man who unwittingly introduced Tello to undercover RCMP officers was killed in White Rock, B.C.

In January 2015, a financier for Tello was shot dead in Alberta.

And, in November 2018, a man convicted in the same roundup was murdered in Montreal after serving his sentence.

In fact, court documents show RCMP had serious concerns for their own officers’ safety after the Harrington takedowns. During a preliminary court hearing, an unknown man was suspected, while sitting in court, of surreptitiously attempting to photograph an undercover RCMP officer known only as UCO Joe, who had led the case.

‘Alex’

In the U.S., Tello, Koretskyy, Guzman and well-known Colombian gangster Hildebrando Alexander Cifuentes-Villa, or “Alex,” have been indicted together by the Southern District of New York.

Koretskyy is currently battling against extradition to the U.S. from the Caribbean. Cifuentes-Villa has already been sent to the U.S., having been apprehended in Mexico in 2014. A U.S. Department of Justice official said they had no comment on whether the U.S. would seek Tello’s extradition, or whether such discussions had taken place.

Koretskyy has hired the same lawyer as Guzman, Jeffrey Lichtman. Lichtman has not returned repeated requests for comment. Adam Boni, a Toronto lawyer who previously represented Tello, declined to comment on his former client’s indictment.