Once a rising star in the outdoor sports world, and Olympic snowboarder, he now finds himself on the run over a series of disturbing and violent charges.
Ryan James Wedding, who represented Canada in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, has been charged with running a drug smuggling operation that allegedly shipped huge amounts of narcotics across borders and killed four people, according to an FBI statement released Thursday.
The FBI says Wedding is considered armed and dangerous, and are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his capture and arrest.
According to the FBI investigation, Wedding is one of 16 defendants indicted by prosecutors in California for running a “transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine” across the Americas, U.S Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement.
The report noted that Wedding — whose allegedly uses the names “El Jefe,” “Giant,” and “Public Enemy” — is charged with eight felonies. He was previously charged with running a continuing criminal enterprise, murder, and conspiring to possess, distribute, and export cocaine.
A second man charged, Andrew Clark, 34, is another Canadian citizen living in Mexico, whose aliases include “the Dictator,” was arrested on Oct. 8 by Mexican police and remains in custody.
Several of the gang have been arrested and are expected to make their first court appearances in the next week in Los Angeles, Michigan and Miami.
Prosecutors say that the gang shipped as much as 827 pounds of of cocaine in a single month, moving it from Mexico to southern California, and then to Ontario, Canada.
“The cocaine trafficking organization’s operatives would store the cocaine in stash houses, before delivering it to the transportation network couriers for transportation to Canada using long-haul semi-trucks,” prosecutors said.
Wedding and Clark are also accused of directing the killing of two people in Ontario in November 2023 in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.
Both Wedding and Clark face life in prison if convicted.