Former Canadian snowboard champion accused of heading drug cartel

From the Olympic Games on the run. A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder is accused of running a major international drug trafficking ring that shipped massive amounts of cocaine to America, according to ABC News. He also allegedly hired hitmen to murder several people, US federal officials said.

Currently on the run in Mexico, Ryan Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, is one of 16 people charged in a federal indictment, the Justice Department announced Thursday. This “prolific and ruthless” criminal organization shipped “tons of cocaine to the United States and Canada,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said at a press briefing. “They were killers. They attacked everyone who was in their path, with violence,” he added.

Investigators say Ryan Wedding ordered the murder of at least three people, including a couple from Ontario, Canada, killed in front of their daughter following a case of mistaken identity in 2023. Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Los Angeles, declared that the man nicknamed “El Jefe”, “Giant” or even “Public Enemy” and his accomplices “unleashed an avalanche of violent crimes, including murders brutal.”

“Armed and dangerous”

The 43-year-old former athlete would have been at the head of this cartel which transported up to 60 tonnes of cocaine per year for thirteen years. The Los Angeles area was used by the cartel as a hub of its operations. Long-distance trucks transported shipments of cocaine from clandestine kitchens in Colombia to safehouses in Los Angeles, shipping the cocaine primarily to Canada, as well as the east coast of the United States.

The FBI announced it would offer a reward of up to $50,000 (46,000 euros) for information leading to his arrest and warned that he “should be considered armed and dangerous.”