U.S. Sanctions Hit Canadian Money Firms Linked To Thunder Bay-Born Ryan Wedding

THUNDER BAY – November 9, 2026

The United States Treasury has sanctioned eight Canadian money services businesses, saying the firms converted Iranian rials into cryptocurrency for the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and that several also laundered drug money for Ryan Wedding, the former Olympic snowboarder born in Thunder Bay who is accused of running a cocaine network for the Sinaloa Cartel.

The designations were announced Friday by the Office of Foreign Assets Control under Executive Order 13902 as part of a campaign Treasury calls Operation Economic Outcast. The eight firms are based in Ontario and British Columbia. Most are storefront currency exchanges in the Toronto area. Others have addresses in Vancouver and Montreal.

OFAC named them as Diverse Trade Inc, doing business as Million Exchange, in Richmond Hill, Toronto and Montreal; 1380079 BC Ltd, doing business as Amin Exchange Vancouver, in North Vancouver and Montreal; Top PC Technician Inc, doing business as Amin Exchange Toronto, in North York and Thornhill; NIA Nations Currency Ltd in Vancouver and North Vancouver; 2397639 Ontario Ltd, doing business as Farah Exchange, in North York; CCC Inc in North York; B Galaxy Inc, doing business as Cryptoyal; and Darvish Exchange in Richmond Hill and North York. Each listing carries a secondary sanctions risk warning. Anyone who continues to do business with the firms risks sanctions of their own.

Treasury says the firms exchanged Iranian rials and other currencies for digital assets. Many dealt with Iranian crypto exchanges already under U.S. sanctions, including Shelbit, Wallex, Nobitex, Ramzinex, Bitpin and Aban Tether, and with crypto addresses linked to the IRGC. Operation Economic Outcast was launched in August to cut off financial channels the Iranian regime uses to move money around sanctions, including through cryptocurrency.

On the same day, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network moved against the crypto exchange MEXC Global. FinCEN issued an order to cut it off from the U.S. financial system over what it described as at least $16 billion in likely illicit transactions linked to Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Treasury also says several of the designated firms laundered drug proceeds for Ryan Wedding. Million Exchange laundered drug proceeds including for Wedding. Amin Exchange laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, including for Wedding. Farah Exchange sent millions of dollars to addresses linked to Wedding. Treasury describes the method: Wedding used couriers to deliver bulk cash from drug sales to exchange businesses in the Vancouver and Toronto areas, which converted the cash into cryptocurrency and sent it abroad. Treasury has estimated that Wedding laundered billions of dollars through the exchanges he used overall. That is an estimate of his total activity, not a sum traced specifically to these eight firms.

Wedding was born in Thunder Bay. He competed for Canada in snowboarding at the Olympic level before U.S. authorities allege he built a cocaine trafficking network tied to the Sinaloa Cartel. He was already under OFAC sanctions before Friday’s announcement and, according to Treasury, was apprehended in January 2026. The allegations against him and against the eight firms have not been proven in court. A sanctions designation is an administrative decision by the U.S. government, not a conviction. Treasury has not published the underlying evidence for its claims about the firms. No criminal charges against the eight companies were announced with the designations.

A designation freezes the firms’ U.S. assets. Americans are generally barred from dealing with them. The secondary sanctions warning hangs over any bank, exchange or business that continues to work with them. For a currency exchange whose business is moving money across borders, that is close to a shutdown by another name. Treasury said the action was coordinated with FinCEN, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence unit. Canadian authorities were in the room for a move against Canadian companies on Canadian soil.

The money in this story moved through Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, not through Thunder Bay. Nothing in Treasury’s announcement places any of the eight firms or any transaction in Northwestern Ontario. The connection is the man: a Thunder Bay-born Olympian whose alleged network, the United States says, reached into the same storefront exchanges that were moving Iranian rials into crypto. Two of Washington’s biggest illicit-finance files—Iran sanctions evasion and cartel drug money—met in the same eight businesses.

The designations are already in effect. The FinCEN order against MEXC takes effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register. On the criminal track, there is nothing announced to follow—no charges against the firms and no new statement about Wedding’s own case beyond his January apprehension. The confirmed facts are the designations themselves, the eight names on OFAC’s list, and what the United States alleges they did. Those allegations have not been tested in court.