Ten Canadians, including a former Olympic snowboarder born in Thunder Bay, Ont., have been charged in an alleged transnational organized crime group.
Ryan Wedding and nine other Canadians were among 16 people indicted on Thursday as part of FBI Operation GIANT SLALOM.
Wedding, who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, is said to be the alleged leader of the Mexican Cartel-linked criminal network. He remains at large and is wanted by the United States and Canada.
The group is alleged to have moved large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine from Central and South America via the United States to Canada and overseas through a Canada-based drug transportation network run by two people from Ontario.
“The cocaine shipments were transported from Mexico to the Los Angeles area, where the cocaine trafficking organization’s operatives would store the cocaine in stash houses, before delivering it to the transportation network couriers for transportation to Canada using long-haul semi-trucks,” said a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to the indictment, in March 2024, the organization delivered around 293 kilograms of cocaine for eventual shipment to and distribution in Canada.
The following month, the organization tried to deliver about 375 kilograms (827 pounds) of cocaine for eventual transportation to Canada, but investigators interrupted the delivery and seized the cocaine.
In total, several defendants possessed a total of approximately 1,800 kilograms of cocaine, according to the superseding indictment.
Wedding and fellow Canadian Andrew Clark also allegedly directed the November 2023 murders of two members of a family in Ontario in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment that passed through southern California.
A third member of that family survived the shooting but was left with serious physical injuries.
The two are also accused of ordering the murder of another victim on May 18, 2024, over a drug debt. Investigators did not say where the victim was from.
Clark and another Canadian are charged with the April 1, 2024, murder of another victim in Ontario.
