FBI offers $10M reward for Canadian ex-Olympian accused of running drug empire, ordering murders
Ryan Wedding has been added to the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The FBI announced Thursday that Canadian former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been added to the agency’s Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. Wedding faces several U.S. charges, including conspiracy to export cocaine, running a criminal enterprise and murder.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs announced it is offering a $10 million reward for information that could lead to the 43-year-old’s arrest, alongside the FBI’s current offering of $50,000 for more information on Wedding.
Wedding’s drug trafficking network allegedly regularly shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and locations in the United States. Wedding is also accused of orchestrating multiple murders as part of these drug crimes. He is reportedly known by several aliases, including “El Jefe,” “Public Enemy” and “Giant.”
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At Thursday’s press conference in Los Angeles, officials said Wedding is believed to live somewhere in Mexico, possibly under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel.
Cart Weiland, a senior State Department official, told reporters that after his successful snowboarding career, Wedding “went downhill — in a different kind of way,” the Toronto Star reported.
“He traded snow for another kind of powder,” Weiland said.
Prosecutors in Toronto court said in a recent letter they believe Wedding has been on the run since October when authorities first identified him as the leader of a major criminal enterprise that works with Mexican cartels and ordered multiple murders in Ontario.
His alleged second-in-command, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, was arrested by Mexico’s Naval forces in October. Clark, 34, was among the 29 alleged Mexican drug cartel members who were sent to the United States earlier this year in a mass handover, overseen by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In addition to the drug trafficking accusations, Wedding and Clark are accused of orchestrating the murder of four people in Ontario in November 2023 over a stolen drug shipment. Two of the deaths have been described as the result of a “mistaken identity shooting.”