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Agence France-Presse

The United States offered a US$10 million reward on Thursday for information leading to the arrest of a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder wanted on drug and murder charges.
Ryan Wedding, 43, who was believed to be in Mexico or another Latin American country, was also placed on the FBI’s list of the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives”.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of US cities and in his native Canada,” said Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
“The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man,” Davis said.

Wedding, whose aliases include “El Jefe”, “Giant” and “Public Enemy”, may possibly be living under the protection of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Davis said at a press conference.
In photos taken of Wedding in 2024, he sported a bedazzled Los Angeles Dodgers hat and a thick moustache.
Acting US Attorney Joseph McNally said Wedding had allegedly shipped hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and Canada.
Alan Hamilton, chief of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department, said Wedding used the southern California city as the hub for the drug smuggling operation.
An estimated 60 tonnes of cocaine per year and five tonnes of fentanyl per month moved through Los Angeles on its way to US and Canadian cities, Hamilton said.
Wedding, who competed for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, finishing 24th in the parallel giant slalom, was one of 16 defendants facing US charges for their roles in the drug operation.
“The organisation is violent, responsible for deaths as part of its criminal operations,” McNally said.

These include the November 2023 murders of two members of a family in Ontario, Canada, in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment and a May 2024 murder in Niagara Falls, Ontario, over a drug debt.
The State Department was offering a US$10 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Wedding.
Wedding’s second-in-command, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, 34, known as “El Dictador”, was among 29 alleged or convicted narcotics traffickers extradited to the United States from Mexico last week.


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The FBI wanted poster for former Olympian Ryan James Wedding. Photo: FBI via AFP

This image from 2024 released by the FBI shows former Olympian Ryan James Wedding. Photo: FBI via AFP

Ryan Wedding of Canada competing at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. File photo: TNS

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United States & Canada

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Ex-snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been added to the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted Fugitives’ list


Ex-snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been added to the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted Fugitives’ list.


Crime

Drugs

Fentanyl and other opioids