Olympic snowboarder used Tether in cocaine smuggling murder scheme, feds say

The feds have filed criminal charges against an Olympic snowboarder for his alleged role in a cocaine trafficking ring that used a stablecoin. Tether (USDT) as a key part of its billion-dollar operation.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment was filed on Thursday. supposed This former professional snowboarder, Ryan James Wedding, and 15 other defendants ran a drug trafficking syndicate, shipping cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and Canada.

US authorities say the gang committed several murders as part of its operation and used cryptocurrency to try to evade police.

“Defendant Bonilla will offer defendants Wedding and Clark payment for two kilograms of cocaine through the cryptocurrency payment service Tether,” the indictment states. He added that QR codes were sent to drug dealers to receive payment in US dollars.

The Justice Department said it seized more than $3.2 million in cryptocurrency as part of the investigation, as well as more than one ton of cocaine, three firearms, dozens of rounds of ammunition and $255,400.

According to authorities, the wedding is now in full swing. The FBI is currently offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and extradition of Vedad, a 47-year-old who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics and recently lived in Mexico.

His Olympic biography speaks that the athlete “was convicted of attempting to purchase cocaine from a US government agent” back in 2008 and received a four-year prison sentence for this.

“As alleged in the indictment, the Olympic athlete turned drug lord is now accused of leading a transnational organized crime ring that trafficked cocaine and murdered, including innocent civilians,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.

USDT is the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and one of the most traded digital assets, ranking second in 24-hour trading volume after Bitcoin.

The token is important to the crypto ecosystem as it is used by traders to quickly enter and exit trades, as well as convert crypto to fiat through a traditional bank.

But cryptocurrency and the company that issues it controversial: Tether has been slow to provide documentation confirming that US dollars support USDT; US regulators have expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the company is also not independently audited.

In 2021 Tether agreed to cease doing business in New York after a two-year investigation by the state attorney general’s office found that the company “made false statements of support” for its stablecoin.

However, the company regularly points to quarterly performance reviews and transparency reports as evidence of its compliance, and has been We cooperate closely law enforcement agencies to freeze funds allegedly used by criminals.

Edited by Andrew Hayward