U.S. authorities arrested former Canadian snowboarding star Ryan Wedding ceremony on Friday, taking down a suspected drug kingpin they mentioned used cryptocurrency networks to maneuver and launder proceeds from his felony enterprises.
U.S. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi known as Wedding ceremony a “onetime Olympian snowboarder-turned alleged violent cocaine kingpin,” in an announcement, and he or she mentioned he is been flown to the U.S. to face prices. Wedding ceremony had been on the checklist of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top-10ten needed fugitives for accusations of cocaine trafficking and homicide, and FBI Director Kash Patel mentioned in a posting on social media website X that he’d been captured in Mexico.
Wedding ceremony, who the FBI mentioned had been related to the Sinaloa Cartel, was sanctioned by the U.S. Division of the Treasury’s Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management in November.
“His felony group makes use of cryptocurrency to maneuver and launder the proceeds of drug trafficking, concealing huge sums of illicit wealth,” the Treasury Division mentioned in that discover.
The 44-year-old had competed for Group Canada within the Salt Lake Metropolis Olympics of 2002, ending twenty fourth in his occasion that yr. The yr earlier than, within the Junior World Championships, he’d gained a silver medal.