[imagesource:cac.ca]

A former Olympic snowboarder has been charged with leading a huge international drug trafficking organisation that trafficked massive amounts of cocaine and reportedly hired hitmen to murder numerous victims.

Ryan Wedding, 43, a former Olympian from Canada who now lives in Mexico, is one of 16 people accused in a federal indictment, the US Department of Justice revealed on Thursday.

The “prolific and ruthless” organised crime group shipped “literally tons of cocaine into the United States and Canada,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said during a press briefing.

Wedding allegedly ran the billion-dollar operation for the past 13 years from Mexico, from where the organisation allegedly moved about 60 tons of cocaine per year.

“They were killers,” said Estrada. “Anyone who got in their way they would target with violence. Including murder.”

According to Estrada, the gang previously used Los Angeles as a hub for its operations, reportedly employing long-haul trucks to transport cocaine shipments from drug cooks in Colombia to stash homes in Los Angeles. The cocaine was mostly sent to Canada but also to the East Coast of the United States.

Wedding and others reportedly generated billions of dollars, which they transferred in the form of bitcoin. They are suspected of laundering a quarter of a billion dollars between April and September.

Law enforcement has seized more than one ton of cocaine, three firearms, dozens of rounds of ammunition, R4.5 million in U.S. currency and more than R56 million in cryptocurrency as part of its investigation into the so-called Wedding Drug Trafficking Organisation.

Prosecutors said the organisation used contract killers to assassinate anyone they saw as getting in their way. The victims were all shot execution-style in Canada, so their loved ones could see them murdered.

Members of the Wedding Drug Trafficking Organisation were arrested in California, Michigan, Florida, Canada, Colombia and Mexico, prosecutors said. Several of them expected to make their court appearances in the coming week in Los Angeles, Michigan and Miami.

Wedding competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, where he placed 24th in the giant parallel slalom. It seems fresh powder on the slopes wasn’t enough for Wedding, and if convicted he will face a minimum penalty of life in federal prison.

[source:abc]