An Olympic snowboarder along with 15 others were charged for allegedly running a massive international drug trafficking operation to smuggle cocaine into Canada from Colombia through Mexico, using Los Angeles as their transportation hub, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Ryan Wedding, a Canadian citizen who competed for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, allegedly ran a criminal enterprise that smuggled 16 tons of cocaine to Canada every year, being the largest cocaine supplier to the country.
“Just from March to August of this year alone, we found they transported 1,800 kilograms of cocaine,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said. “On a yearly basis, they would move about 60 tons of cocaine.
The cocaine shipments were “routinely” shipped from Colombia to Mexico, then they were transported to Los Angeles stash houses before being smuggled into Ontario, Canada, federal investigators alleged.
Wedding, who now resides in Mexico, was on the …