A man from the Toronto area, identified as Rakhim Ibragimov and also known as the “Russian” or “George,” has been sentenced to 68 months, equivalent to over five and a half years, in a U.S. prison after pleading guilty to smuggling cocaine for a drug network allegedly linked to former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding.
According to a plea agreement filed in California’s central district federal court in June, Ibragimov admitted to intending to distribute 375 kilograms of cocaine with the aim of transporting it to Canada. U.S. federal Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence on Wednesday, which includes three years of supervised release with conditions such as periodic drug testing and substance abuse counseling.
Ibragimov was apprehended by U.S. authorities in April 2024 after traveling from Canada to California to oversee a drug shipment. Following his detention, he was allowed to return to Ontario but was later arrested by Toronto police in October 2024. This arrest coincided with a series of arrests made by U.S. authorities on more than a dozen of Wedding’s alleged co-conspirators in various countries, including Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and Colombia, on charges ranging from drug trafficking to murder.
Although Ibragimov’s plea agreement did not mention Wedding, an indictment document listing Wedding and over a dozen others as alleged co-conspirators includes his name. Approximately a year after his initial arrest, Ibragimov agreed to be extradited and face charges in the U.S. He spent about a year at the Toronto South Detention Centre before his extradition.
His lawyer, Humberto Diaz, submitted a request to reduce Ibragimov’s sentence to two and a half years, considering the time spent at the Toronto South Detention Centre. The request also argued for a reduced sentence based on Ibragimov’s “mitigating role” in the offense.
Efforts to obtain a comment from Diaz by CBC were unsuccessful.
