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Ryan Wedding initially made a name for himself as a snowboarder who represented Canada at the Winter Olympics in 2002. However, he’s been thrust into the spotlight thanks to a different type of snow after being added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list due to his alleged role as a cocaine trafficker linked to multiple murders.
Virtually every person who earns the right to compete at the Olympics has devoted their life to their sport, and almost all of them will end up getting a reality check when they reach a point where they need to put that chapter behind them and enter a new era.
In 2002, snowboarder Ryan Wedding was one of the 150 Canadian athletes who headed to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics. The Ontario native, who was 21 years old, at the time competed in the men’s parallel giant slalom competition and ultimately finished in 24th place out of the 32 people who took part.
That was the first and last time Wedding qualified for the Olympics, and he eventually realized he needed to pivot to a new career before making the bold decision to settle on “drug trafficker.”
Wedding initially spent four years in prison after being convicted of smuggling cocaine for a drug lord in British Columbia in 2010, and based on the fresh set of charges he was hit with last October, he not only picked up where he left off but expanded his horizons in a big way after being released.
The FBI asserts Wedding is an instrumental figure in a “transnational drug ring” that has “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia” via Mexico before transporting it to Southern California and subsequently distributing it around the United States and Canada.
The agency says Wedding has ties to the infamous Sinaloa cartel and not only facilitated the trafficking of the drugs but ordered the murders of three different people who stole a shipment or owed money in addition to one person who was left with “serious physical injuries” after surviving a shooting that almost claimed their life.
On Thursday, the FBI announced it had added Wedding to the list of its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in place of Alexis Flores, who’d been there since 2007 in connection to the kidnapping and murder of a five-year-old girl in Philadelphia.
The FBI believes Wedding—who is known by aliases including El Jefe, Giant, Public Enemy, James Conrad King, and Jesse King—is currently residing in Mexico, and the State Department is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his capture.