Snowboarder Ryan Wedding and 15 others are accused of shipping 60 tons of cocaine a year to the US and Canada.

U.S. prosecutors in Los Angeles, California, have charged a former Olympic snowboarder with running a large and violent cocaine smuggling operation from Mexico.

On Thursday, the Justice Department unveiled a 52-page indictment accusing 43-year-old Canadian athlete, Ryan James Wedding, and 15 other people of shipping 60 tons of cocaine a year from Colombia to Canada and the U.S. using long-term term cocaine. transport 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 $5 million luxury mansion near Miami in South Florida and arrested its owner, 36-year-old music manager and restaurant owner Nahim Jorge Bonilla, who was also named in the indictment, The Miami Herald reported.

Bonilla allegedly received 12 kilos 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 pay back what was owed.

Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, also faces charges in Canada in a separate drug case. He was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010, federal records show.

U.S. authorities believe that after Wedding’s release, he resumed drug trafficking for Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel.

“He chose to become a major drug trafficker, and he chose to become a murderer,” Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, told reporters Thursday.

Authorities also explained that they seized cocaine, weapons, ammunition, cash and more than $3 million in cryptocurrency in connection with their investigation.

“Wedding, the Olympic snowboarder, went from navigating slopes to crafting a life of relentless crime,” said Matthew Allen, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Los Angeles.

Of the 16 people charged in the drug trafficking conspiracy, four remain at large, Estrada said. A dozen others were arrested in connection with the case in Florida, Michigan, Canada, Colombia and Mexico.

The criminal enterprise is also believed to be responsible for the November 20, 2023, murder of two members of an Indian family in Ontario, Canada, who were killed in retaliation for a stolen shipment of drugs.

At least one other person was also killed by the group.

Wedding’s co-accused Clark, 34, is also a Canadian citizen. Known by the alias “The Dictator,” he was arrested by Mexican authorities on October 8, according to the Justice Department.