A Toronto man arrested for his role in conspiring to smuggle cocaine for a drug network allegedly tied to former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding has taken a plea deal in the U.S.
Uzbekistan-born Rakhim Ibragimov, known to associates as the “Russian” or “George,” will plead guilty for intent to distribute 375 kilograms of cocaine “for the purpose of transporting it to Canada,” his plea agreement, filed Monday in California’s central district federal court, said.
Ibragimov was caught by U.S. authorities in April 2024 after he traveled from Canada to California to oversee a drug shipment, according to an agreed statement of facts laid out in his plea deal.
He “attempted” to pick up around 375 kilograms of cocaine, which would “eventually be transported to Canada,” the statement of facts said.
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He was detained and then allowed to return to Ontario before being arrested again in October 2024 by Toronto police. His arrest came around the same time that U.S authorities moved in on more than a dozen of Wedding’s alleged co-conspirators in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Colombia for charges that ranged from drug trafficking to murder.
At the time of those arrests, Wedding was still at large. He was arrested after a decade on the run earlier this year. Ibragimov’s plea deal did not make mention of Wedding.
Around a year after his arrest, Ibragimov agreed to be extradited and face his charges in the U.S. His plea deal acknowledged that he “saved” both U.S. and Canadian governments “significant resources” by waiving his right to an extradition hearing.
According to the plea deal, Ibragimov’s involvement is specifically tied to an agreement struck between a drug trafficking organization and a “drug transportation network” that operated through California with the intent to distribute “no less than 1,800 kilograms of cocaine” in the U.S., which would later be exported to Canada.
That agreement started at an unknown date and continued until around August 2024, according to the court documents.
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Ibragimov was caught in Riverside — a city near Los Angeles — by U.S. authorities in 2024 as he loaded boxes filled with cocaine to his car, according to the statement of facts. The Los Angeles Police Department previously accused Wedding’s network of using the L.A. area as a logistics hub for a $1-billion US cocaine and fentanyl smuggling operation.
CBC News asked Ibragimov’s lawyer, Humberto Diaz, for comment but has not received a response.
Ibragimov is expected to formally plead guilty on July 8. No date has been set for sentencing yet.
