Olympic snowboarder wanted for running murderous drug trafficking operation, FBI says

A former Olympic snowboarder has been charged with working a drug smuggling operation that allegedly shipped big quantities of narcotics throughout borders and killed 4 folks, the FBI mentioned Thursday.

A $50,000 reward has been supplied for info resulting in the arrest of Ryan James Wedding ceremony, 43, who represented Canada within the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis in 2002. Wedding ceremony is now thought-about an armed and harmful fugitive, in accordance with the FBI.

A Canadian citizen who lives in Mexico, Wedding ceremony is certainly one of 16 defendants indicted by prosecutors in California for working a “transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped a whole lot of kilograms of cocaine” throughout the Americas, U.S Legal professional Martin Estrada mentioned in an announcement.

The gang’s leaders “orchestrated a number of murders in furtherance of those drug crimes,” Estrada mentioned.

Wedding ceremony — whose allegedly makes use of the names “El Jefe,” “Large,” and “Public Enemy” — is charged with eight felonies. He was beforehand charged with working a seamless legal enterprise, homicide, and conspiring to own, distribute, and export cocaine.

A second man, Andrew Clark, 34, one other Canadian citizen residing in Mexico, whose aliases embody “the Dictator,” was arrested on Oct. 8 by Mexican police and stays in custody. Each males face life in jail if convicted. A number of of the gang have been arrested and are anticipated to make their first courtroom appearances within the subsequent week in Los Angeles, Michigan and Miami.

Prosecutors allege that the gang shipped as a lot as 827 kilos of of cocaine in a single month, transferring it from Mexico to southern California, after which to Ontario, Canada.

“The cocaine trafficking group’s operatives would retailer the cocaine in stash homes, earlier than delivering it to the transportation community couriers for transportation to Canada utilizing long-haul semi-trucks,” prosecutors mentioned.

Wedding ceremony and Clark are additionally accused of directing the killing of two folks in Ontario in November 2023 in retaliation for a stolen drug cargo.

“As alleged within the indictment, an Olympic athlete-turned-drug lord is now charged with main a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and homicide, together with of harmless civilians,” Estrada mentioned.

Matthew Allen, particular agent in control of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles, mentioned the drug trafficking gang had “triggered an avalanche of violent crimes, together with brutal murders” and that “Wedding ceremony, the Olympian snowboarder, went from navigating slopes to contouring a lifetime of incessant crimes.”

Already in the course of the investigation, undertaken in partnership with LAPD police in Ontario, officers have seized greater than a ton of cocaine, three firearms, dozens of rounds of ammunition, greater than $250,000 in U.S. forex and greater than $3.2 million in cryptocurrency.