The FBI on Thursday added former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding to its list of the 10 Most Wanted Fugitives and is offering a $10 million reward for information that leads to his arrest.
Wedding, a 43-year-old Canadian citizen, is accused of running an international drug ring and ordering murders, according to the bureau.
FBI
Wedding is accused of running a drug ring and ordering murders. (FBI)
Wedding allegedly distributed cocaine and fentanyl out of Los Angeles and orchestrated multiple murders in connection with the trafficking operation, which “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States,” the FBI said.
Investigators believe Wedding is living in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel. His aliases include El Jefe, Giant, Public Enemy, James Conrad King and Jesse King.
Wedding competed for Canada in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding event at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, finishing 24th.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and in his native Canada,” Akil Davis, the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said. “The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man.”
According to his Olympics biography, Wedding was accused of operating a marijuana grow operation in British Columbia, but was not convicted. In 2010, he was sentenced to four years in prison after he tried to buy cocaine from a government agent.
