Former Canadian Olympian charged in major US cocaine-smuggling case
Al Jazeera
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.
