Article content A former Montreal music promoter had methamphetamines smuggled into Laval from the United States to pay a cocaine debt to an Olympic snowboarder-turned-drug kingpin who threatened to kill his mother, U.S. authorities say.
U.S. federal prosecutors say Nahim Jorge Bonilla was part of a drug-smuggling operation led by former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding that trafficked hundreds of kilograms of Colombian cocaine into Canada through Mexico and California.
The allegations against Bonilla — among 15 others, including Wedding and eight other Canadians — are contained in an indictment filed in a U.S. federal court in California.
Wedding, who competed for Team Canada in the 2002 Olympics, is accused of “ leading a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and murder, including of innocent civilians,” Martin Estrada, a U.S. a ttorney, said when the indictment was unsealed in October.
Bonilla, 36, was arrested at his Miami-area home the day the indictment was unsealed. The court document alleges that Bonilla arranged to obtain and planned to distribute 12 kilograms of cocaine from Wedding and his second-in-command, Andrew Clark, a Canadian recently arrested in Mexico. At least some of those 12 kilos were brought to Montreal.
Prosecutors say Bonilla paid Wedding and Clark upfront for seven kilograms of cocaine and was expected to pay for the rest after they were sold. But Bonilla didn’t pay for the other five kilog.
