By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Former Olympian snowboarder Ryan James Wedding has been charged in a cocaine trafficking ring that allegedly used stablecoin Tether (USDT) to run billion-dollar deals. The US Attorney’s Office, Central District of California has charged Wedding and 15 other defendants for shipping kilograms of cocaine through Mexico and into the United States and Canada.
US authorities say Wedding and co-conspirators used USDT for payments with QR codes sent to drug runners for crypto transfers. The DOJ has seized over $3.2 million in crypto, over 1 ton of cocaine, firearms, and hundreds of thousands in cash during the investigation.
Ex-Olympian’s drug empire exposed
As per the DOJ’s release, Ryan James Wedding has been charged in a 16-count superseding indictment for allegedly running a transnational drug trafficking operation. He is now residing in Mexico and was previously charged with operating criminal activities, murder, and smuggling cocaine. However, one of his counterparts Andrew Clark was arrested on October 8 in Mexico while Wedding remains a fugitive.
It mentioned that the superseding indictment was unsealed on October 16 which named 14 additional co-defendants. The complaint alleged that the former Olympic snowboarder conspired to ship bulk quantities of cocaine from Southern California to Canada with others.
He used a Canada-based drug transportation network run by Hardeep Ratte from around January 2024 to August 2024. It added that the cocaine shipments were moved from Mexico to the Los Angeles area.
$25M in cocaine and $3.2M in crypto seized
The law enforcement authorities have seized more than one ton of cocaine, three firearms, and over 10 rounds of ammunition with $255,400 in United States currency. They also grabbed more than $3.2 million in crypto, making this case even more striking.
Wedding and others had already delivered 293 kgs of cocaine to representatives of Ratte and Singh for distribution over Canada in March 2024. In the following month, they tried to deliver more than 375 kgs of the drugs but this time investigators interrupted the operation.
The complaint highlighted that the defendants held around 1,800 kilograms (1.8 metric tons) of cocaine. It has a street value of between $23.4 million and $25.2 million in Los Angeles.
United States Attorney Martin Estrada stated that the Olympic athlete-turned-drug lord is charged with leading a transnational organized crime group engaging in drug trafficking and murder. Meanwhile, the FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for any information leading to his arrest.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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