Winnipeg judge finds gang member guilty of playing ‘key’ role in multi-province drug trafficking network
Damion Ryan found guilty of trafficking meth, fentanyl, cocaine and conspiring to benefit from organized crime
Bryce Hoye · CBC News · Posted: Dec 15, 2025
Damion Ryan, then 41, seen in a mugshot at a March 2022 RCMP news conference in Manitoba, where Mounties announced 20 arrests, including Ryan, as part of a trafficking investigation dubbed Project Divergent. (CBC)
A Winnipeg judge has found Damion Ryan guilty of several offences as a “key” part of a drug trafficking network that spanned provinces before a bust over three years ago.
Justice Chris W. Martin found Ryan guilty of conspiring to traffic in methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl, and conspiracy to profit from the proceeds of crime as a member of an organized crime group, the Wolfpack.
“It is overwhelmingly clear…. This conspiracy group was a criminal organization and Mr. Ryan was a key part,” Martin said in court in Winnipeg on Monday.
“Mr. Ryan was a key member. His role was directing a high level drug organization that could source [high quantities] of meth, cocaine and fentanyl … along with handguns and protection to support a drug operation.”
He also found Ryan guilty of instructing a person to commit a criminal offence.
Ryan was arrested, along with 19 others in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Ottawa in February 2022, as part of multi-year drug trafficking investigation by RCMP called Project Divergent. RCMP have said Ryan is a full-patch member of the Hells Angels with the Attica chapter in Greece but lived in Ontario.
Officers seized more than $70 million in drugs and recovered weapons and paraphernalia from the Hells Angels and Wolfpack group.
Ryan’s judge-only trial hit several delays before it finally got underway in September.
He at various times self-represented, received assistance from an amicus curiae, or friend of the court — defence lawyer Amanda Sansregrett — and for a brief time he had representation from a lawyer in British Columbia.
Officers from multiple police agencies seized more than $70 million in illicit drugs as part of the Project Divergent investigation, Manitoba RCMP said on March 29, 2022. Multiple handguns, assault rifles, and Hells Angels paraphernalia were also seized. (Ron Boileau/CBC)
His trial was delayed three times after Ryan fired lawyers three times and had a fourth withdraw.
When the trial began this September, court heard volumes of intercepted calls from jail with a co-conspirator, surreptitiously recorded audio of meetings between Ryan and co-conspirators, and many messages from encrypted messaging apps prosecutors Janna Hyman and Kate Henley argued incriminated Ryan and others.
A drug-dealer-turned-informant played a significant role in helping investigators get close to Ryan, court heard.
He was in the thick of it … the problem-solver and the organizer.- Justice Chris W. Martin, Court of King’s Bench
The informant’s identity is protected under a publication ban, but he testified for over a week this fall under the pseudonym Agent 66.
Court heard Agent 66 was to receive a total of $900,000 by the end of the trial, on top of a monthly stipend he has been receiving since the start of his involvement in the investigation. He remains in witness protection.
Over the course of the investigation, Agent 66 purchased 40 kilos of meth, 1.6 kilos of fentanyl, and 7.5 kilos of cocaine for over $700,000, Justice Martin said Monday.
Court heard investigators coached him behind the scenes for over a year, using him to first gain the trust of a longtime associate and friend of Ryan’s, Andre Steele.
RCMP intercepted call audio and messages from Steele, who was in jail at the time, that were used to flesh out the broader trafficking case against him, Ryan and their co-conspirators at trial.
It was through his relationship with Steele that Agent 66 connected with alleged B.C.-based supplier Ezra Beau Sametz, nicknamed Benito B. Once he died of an overdose in the middle of the investigation, court heard Steele introduced him to Sametz’s replacement, Denis Ivziku, or Menace.
Ivziku, brother-in-law of Ryan, disappeared before the bust in February 2022 and has never been found.
At trial, the prosecution laid out evidence for how Ivziku sold multiple kilos of meth to Agent 66 on separate occasions and ultimately connected him with Ryan via encrypted messaging apps.
Ryan went by the names Polar Bear, Berzerker, Big Homie, Mr. Wolf and more to disguise his identity, court heard.
Agent 66 and Ryan met in person in late 2021 at a Montreal restaurant, where they discussed cocaine and illicit cigarettes, and Ryan offered to hook him up with Glock handguns. That, too, was recorded and served as a key moment in the investigation.
“That’s more or less what I do, I find the f–king solutions,” Ryan told Agent 66 during that meeting, according to transcripts of audio Justice Martin read out in court.
“I don’t really deal with a lot of the day-to-day things, I always put like a manager in … they can do their thing.”
Justice Martin pointed to that moment, testimony from Agent 66 and the lengthy account of messages and audio recordings, saying there was an “overarching scheme” to traffic in drugs and Ryan was at the top of the heap.
“It was all for one and one for all,” Martin said. “He was in the thick of it … the problem-solver and the organizer.”
Martin said it’s unclear whether sentencing will happen before the holidays.