A former Olympic snowboarder has been charged as part of a sprawling indictment for allegedly running a billion-dollar, transnational drug trafficking enterprise that orchestrated execution-style killings of people who got in its way, authorities said......Read The Full Article>>.....Read The Full Article>>
In a past life, Ryan Wedding represented Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, placing 24th in the parallel giant slalom.
These days, he’s on the run from authorities and accused of helming for 13 years what U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada described in a news briefing.
Thursday as an “extremely prolific and ruthless” criminal enterprise that moved an average of 60 tons of cocaine per year.
“Instead of using the privileges that come with being an Olympic athlete to do good for people, he did the opposite. He chose to become a major drug trafficker and he chose to become a killer,” Estrada said at the briefing.
The former snowboarder, who authorities believe lives in Mexico, is the lead defendant on the indictment, which also names Andrew Clark, a 34-year-old Canadian, who was arrested Oct. 8, and 14 co-defendants. Twelve including Clark are in custody. Wedding, 43, is charged with eight felonies — among them, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to export cocaine, leading a continuing criminal enterprise and multiple counts of murder. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and extradition.
No attorney was listed for Wedding or Clark.
Wedding was convicted about 15 years ago in the United States of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and served a prison sentence of over a year, according to court documents. Authorities believe he returned to drug trafficking and built the organization after his release.
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, alleges that Wedding’s organization “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine” to Canada and the United States and “orchestrated multiple murders in furtherance of these drug crimes,” a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said.
In one of the examples included in the release, Wedding and Clark are accused of directing the killing of a couple who were visiting Canada from India and mistakenly believed to be responsible for a lost cocaine shipment. The two were found to have no known connection to Wedding’s operation and were fatally shot in November in front of their daughter, who was also shot, Estrada alleged.
“All of these victims were intentionally shot execution-style so their loved ones could see them murdered,” he said.
Estrada also laid out a complex network through which Wedding’s organization allegedly sourced and distributed massive amounts of cocaine. The group, he said, acquired the drug through cocaine kitchens in Colombia and transported it into Mexico and the United States using long-haul semi-trucks. The organization’s operatives are said to have stored the cocaine in stash houses in the Los Angeles area, from which Canadian handlers would coordinate transportation to locations on the East Coast and in Canada.
The proceeds were then laundered through cryptocurrency, he said, noting that one of the wallets, which was seized by authorities, contained more than $3 million.
During the investigation, authorities also seized more than one ton of cocaine, three firearms, dozens of rounds of ammunition and more than $255,000, the release said.
If convicted, Wedding and Clark face a mandatory minimum penalty of life in federal prison on murder and attempted murder charges alone.
Matthew Allen, special agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Los Angeles Field Division, said in the release that authorities “stand firmly in our resolve to dismantle” Wedding’s operation, which along with “its unremitting, callous and greed-driven crimes has been operating for far too long.”
