How snowboarder Ryan Wedding went from Olympian to alleged drug kingpin and murderer on FBI Most Wanted list
Two decades after his career as an Olympic snowboarder, Ryan Wedding is on a different type of downhill — skidding straight onto the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.Wedding, a 43-year-old Canadian who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, has since gone off-piste and into a different type of powder — allegedly becoming a cold-blooded transnational drug kingpin with ties to the vicious Sinaloa cartel.Prosecutors allege he operated a billion-dollar criminal enterprise moving cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, the US and Canada between 2011 and 2024 and is responsible for at least three murders.His alleged number two, Andrew Clark, 34 — also a Canadian citizen — was arrested in October 2024 in Mexico and has been extradited to the US to face charges.
Wedding’s nicknames include “El Jefe,” (The Boss) and “Public Enemy” and the State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.Prosecutors believe he’s somewhere being protected by the cartel even though at 6’3″ with piercing blue eyes and reddish hair, he is not inconspicuous.Wedding and Clark allegedly ran their operation out of Mexico using used the encrypted messaging app Threema, according to the feds.
With the help of the cartel, they are accused of moving 54 tons of Colombian cocaine up to stash houses in Los Angeles then transporting across the US and Canada.“He chose to become a major drug trafficker and a killer,” Martin Estrada, the US Attorney for the Central District of California, said last fall when Wedding was indicted on charges of conspiracy to export cocaine, running a continuing criminal enterprise and three murders in connection with the operation, as well as an attempted murder.“An Olympic athlete-turned-druglord is now charged with leading a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and murder, including of innocent civilians,” Estrada said.Tony Wayne, a former ambassador to Mexico wh...