Former Canadian Olympian charged in major US cocaine-smuggling case

Snowboarder Ryan Wedding and 15 others are accused of shipping 60 tonnes of cocaine a year to the US and Canada.

United States prosecutors in Los Angeles, California, have charged a former Olympic snowboarder with allegedly running a large and violent cocaine smuggling operation out of Mexico.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice unveiled a 52-page indictment accusing the 43-year-old Canadian athlete, Ryan James Wedding, and 15 other people, of shipping 60 tonnes of cocaine a year from Colombia to Canada and the US using long-haul semi-trucks.

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and extradition of Wedding, who is considered a fugitive and uses the aliases El Jefe, Giant and Public Enemy.

Agents also raided a $5m luxury mansion near Miami in South Florida and arrested its owner, 36-year-old music executive and restaurant owner Nahim Jorge Bonilla, who was also named in the indictment, The Miami Herald reported.

Bonilla allegedly received 12 kilogrammes (about 44lbs) of cocaine from Wedding and his co-defendant Andrew Clark to distribute. According to the indictment, Bonilla was in debt to Clark and Wedding, and the two men threatened to kill Bonilla’s mother if he did not repay what was owed.

At a news conference on October 17, prosecutors displayed bricks of cocaine and other evidence of an alleged drug-trafficking operation, helmed by snowboarder Ryan Wedding [Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo]

Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, also faces charges in Canada in a separate drug case. He was previously convicted in the US of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010, federal records show.

US authorities believe that, after Wedding’s release, he resumed drug trafficking for the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.

“He chose to become a major drug trafficker, and he chose to become a killer,” Martin Estrada, the US attorney in Los Angeles, told reporters on Thursday.

Authorities also explained that they seized cocaine, weapons, ammunition, cash and more than $3m in cryptocurrency in connection to their investigation.

“Wedding, the Olympian snowboarder, went from navigating slopes to contouring a life of incessant crimes,” said Matthew Allen, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Los Angeles.

Of the 16 people accused in the drug trafficking conspiracy, four remain fugitives, Estrada said. A dozen others were arrested in Florida, Michigan, Canada, Colombia and Mexico in connection with the case.

The criminal enterprise was also allegedly responsible for the murders of two members of an Indian family on November 20, 2023, in Ontario, Canada, who were killed in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

At least one other person was also killed by the group.

Wedding’s co-defendant Clark, 34, is also a Canadian citizen. Known by the alias “The Dictator”, he was arrested by Mexican authorities on October 8, according to the Justice Department.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies