Federal authorities have filed criminal charges against an Olympic snowboarder for his alleged involvement in a cocaine trafficking ring that used the stablecoin Tether (USDT) as a key part of its multibillion-dollar operation.
A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment filed Thursday alleges that former professional snowboarder Ryan James Wedding and 15 other defendants operated a drug trafficking syndicate from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. and allegedly transported cocaine to Canada.
U.S. authorities say the criminal organization committed multiple murders as part of the operation and used cryptocurrencies to evade police.
“Defendant Bonilla planned to pay defendants Wedding and Clark for two kilograms of cocaine via the cryptocurrency payment service Tether,” the indictment states. It added that QR codes were sent to drug traffickers to receive payments in USDT.
The Department of Justice announced that as part of the investigation, it seized more than a ton of cocaine, three firearms, dozens of rounds of ammunition, $255,400, and more than $3.2 million in virtual currency.
Officials say the wedding is currently underway. The FBI is currently offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and extradition of Wedding, 47, who represented Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics and recently lived in Mexico.
According to his Olympic biography, the athlete was “convicted of attempting to purchase cocaine from a U.S. government official” in 2008, resulting in a four-year prison sentence.
“As alleged in the indictment, the Olympic athlete-turned-drug lord is part of a transnational organization involved in cocaine trafficking and murder, including of innocent civilians,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. He is being charged with leading a criminal group.”
USDT is the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and one of the most traded digital assets, with the second highest 24-hour trading volume after Bitcoin.
This token is important to the cryptocurrency ecosystem as it is used by traders to quickly initiate and close trades and convert cryptocurrencies into fiat via traditional banks.
However, cryptocurrencies and their issuers are controversial. Tether has been slow to provide documentation proving that the US dollar backs USDT. US regulators have taken issue with the fact that the entity has not been independently audited.
In 2021, Tether agreed not to do business in New York after a two-year state attorney general investigation found that it had “made false statements regarding the backing” of its stablecoin.
However, the company regularly points to quarterly certifications and transparency reports as evidence of compliance, and works closely with law enforcement to freeze funds suspected of being used by criminals. .
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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