SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder pleaded not responsible to operating a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating a number of killings, as one of many FBI’s high fugitives made his first U.S. courtroom look Monday since he was arrested in Mexico final week and flown to California.
U.S. authorities say Ryan Wedding ceremony, who competed in a single occasion for his dwelling nation within the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis, had been hiding in Mexico for greater than a decade. He was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Needed Fugitives listing final March when authorities provided a $15 million reward for data resulting in his arrest and conviction.
Authorities say Wedding ceremony moved as a lot as 60 tons of cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Canada and Southern California and imagine he was working beneath the safety of the Sinaloa Cartel, certainly one of Mexico’s strongest drug rings.
His drug trafficking group was the biggest provider of cocaine to Canada, in response to a 2024 indictment in his dwelling nation, the place he faces separate drug fees courting again to 2015.
Mexican officers stated he turned himself in on the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Metropolis final week and was flown to Southern California after a yearlong effort by authorities in the USA, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and the Dominican Republic to arrest him.
When talking to reporters Monday outdoors the federal courtroom in Santa Ana, south of Los Angeles, Wedding ceremony’s protection legal professional Anthony Colombo disputed that his consumer had turned himself in in Mexico and stated he was residing in Mexico, not hiding on the market.
“He was arrested,” Colombo stated after the temporary listening to, providing no additional particulars. “He didn’t give up.”
Colombo stated his consumer was in “good spirits” however added that “this has been a whirlwind for Mr. Wedding ceremony.”
Federal prosecutors declined to remark after the listening to. Wedding ceremony was scheduled to be again in courtroom Feb. 11 and a trial date was set for Mar. 24.
Wedding ceremony arrived in courtroom sporting a tan jail jumpsuit together with his ankles chained. He smiled briefly, then clasped his palms and leaned again in his chair earlier than reviewing papers together with his legal professional. When requested by U.S. Justice of the Peace John D. Early if he learn the indictments filed towards him, Wedding ceremony answered, “I’ve learn them each, sure.”
The decide ordered him held in custody, saying he couldn’t instantly discover circumstances that will guarantee public security or Wedding ceremony’s look in courtroom. He stated he might contemplate bond if Wedding ceremony seeks it later.
Mexico has more and more despatched detained cartel members to the U.S. because the nation makes an attempt to offset mounting threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, who stated final month U.S. forces “will now begin hitting land” south of the border to focus on drug trafficking rings.
Wedding ceremony was indicted in 2024 on federal fees of operating a prison enterprise, homicide, conspiring to distribute cocaine and different crimes.
The homicide fees accuse Wedding ceremony of directing the 2023 killings of two members of a Canadian household in retaliation for a stolen drug cargo, and for ordering a killing over a drug debt in 2024. Final yr, Wedding ceremony was indicted on new fees of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to assist him keep away from extradition to the U.S.
Wedding ceremony was beforehand convicted within the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and sentenced to jail in 2010. On-line information present he was launched from Bureau of Prisons custody in 2011.
The 2024 Canadian indictment says Wedding ceremony’s group obtained cocaine from Colombia and labored with Mexican cartels to maneuver medicine by boat and airplane to Mexico after which into the U.S. utilizing semitrucks, the indictment stated. It stated the group saved cocaine in Southern California earlier than sending it to Canada and different U.S. states.