A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, who missed his chance at glory at the two previous Winter Games because he was jailed in a U.S. drug case, is accused in a Montreal cocaine smuggling case that stretched across the country.
Indictments filed in Montreal court on Monday allege Ryan Wedding, 33, a former resident of Coquitlam, B.C., residing in Montreal, was involved in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy investigated by the RCMP in Dartmouth, N.S.
Two indictments naming Wedding were made public on Monday after a co-accused appeared at the Montreal courthouse. Wedding was not scheduled to appear Monday and the RCMP in Nova Scotia are expected to release information on the investigation on Tuesday.
Wedding placed 24th in snowboarding while representing Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He was a hopeful for the 2010 Olympics before he was arrested in a cocaine trafficking case in California, where he was charged in a conspiracy to distribute 24 kilos of the narcotic. In 2010, he was sentenced to a four-year prison term for his role in that plot. The sentence prevented Wedding from trying out for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
While the indictments do not list the amounts of cocaine Wedding and four other people are suspected of plotting to smuggle, the investigation appears to have been a significant one. One charge Wedding faces, along with Montreal resident Philipos Kollaros, 35, alleges a conspiracy that stretched from Montreal to Vancouver and included Toronto. Another indictment alleges a plot that stretched from Halifax to Toronto and included Montreal.
