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Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding was hit with two additional counts of witness tampering, intimidation, murder, money laundering and drug trafficking, and federal officials raised the reward for his capture to $15 million on Wednesday.
Wedding, 44 and 14 other alleged associates were accused of orchestrating the January 2025 killing of a witness who was shot dead at a restaurant in Colombia. Officials said Wedding placed a bounty on the victim’s head, believing their death would lead to the dismissal of charges against him and the drug trade he allegedly heads.
Wedding is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list and is described as “an extremely violent criminal believed to be responsible for the murders of numerous people overseas,” according to federal officials.
“You can’t be a drug kingpin and evade the law,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Make no mistake about it. Ryan Wedding is a modern iteration of Pablo Escobar. He is a modern iteration of ‘El Chapo’ Guzman. This Department of Justice and this FBI will work with our Canadian counterparts and officials around the world to bring him to justice.
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Ryan Wedding of Canada takes a practice run for the men’s parallel giant slalom at the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Park City on February 13, 2002. (REUTERS/Jeff J Mitchell)
“He is responsible for developing a drug-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time. He will not evade justice. We are here today because this Department of Justice, behind the brilliant leadership of the Attorney General (Pam Bondi) and the Deputy Attorney General, has made it clear to the American people, with the prosecutions they have brought, that law enforcement will lead to charges from the FBI. there and make sure these animals are brought to justice.”
Patel added that anyone with information about the wedding’s whereabouts, “Now is the time to come forward.”
Officials said a website called “The Dirty News” was also shut down as part of their investigation. Officials said the site was used to post a photo of the January murder victim and his wife online to be “hunted down and killed.”
“Your days are numbered. Our agents and prosecutors will relentlessly pursue you and anyone who helps you and bring you to justice. Not just anywhere, we’re going to bring you to justice in the United States of America,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Central District of California.
Wedding is allegedly responsible for trafficking tons of cocaine through Colombia and Mexico for distribution in the United States and Canada and uses cryptocurrency to hide his wealth. The FBI has said Wedding ordered dozens of murders in North America and Latin America.
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Ryan Wedding remains on the lam. (F.B.I.)
“Protecting federal witnesses from retaliation is at the core of the department’s mission. It’s about individual safety, but more so it’s about protecting the rule of law itself,” said US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Wedding competed in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City after missing the Games in 1998. It was the only Olympics he competed in.
In his only event, the men’s parallel giant slalom, Wedding finished 24th. Switzerland’s Philipp Schoch won gold, Sweden’s Richard Rikardsson won silver and Chris Klug from the USA took bronze.
Wedding was first linked to criminal activity in 2006. He and another competitive snowboarder were named in a search warrant for a home in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, which was investigated for growing large amounts of marijuana, according to The Vancouver Sun.
Police seized 6,800 marijuana plants from that house, but no one was charged.
Wedding was first arrested in 2009 in the United States after traveling with two friends from Vancouver to California to allegedly buy 24 kilograms of Colombian cocaine. The FBI determined that Wedding was working for a Vancouver drug lord at the time.
He served a four-year prison sentence after agreeing to forfeit more than $121,000 seized during an airport sting and agreeing to drop an appeal of his sentence.
In 2015, Wedding faced new charges for drug-related offenses in Nova Scotia. Since then, however, he has been on the lam.
US investigators believed that Wedding was protected by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico and resumed trading shortly after he was released from prison. Federal authorities first issued an arrest warrant for the wedding in September 2024.
Wedding is also believed to go by the aliases “El Jefe”, “Giant”, “Public Enemy”, “James Conrad King” and “Jesse King” and is estimated to have transported over $1 billion in cocaine.
Wedding and alleged accomplice Andrew Clark, who was apprehended in October 2024 and extradited earlier this year, is accused of coordinating the murder of an Ontario family “in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment passing through Southern California.”
Canada’s Ryan Wedding at the 2002 Olympics. (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)
The FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police allege that Wedding and Clark coordinated a double homicide in November 2023 in Ontario that involved an innocent couple in a homicide by mistaken identity, according to the FBI.
Wedding and Clark are also accused of coordinating the murder of another person in May over a drug debt.
The murder and criminal enterprise charges against Wedding carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in federal prison.
