A former Olympic snowboarder is on the FBI’s 10 most wanted individuals, and an already hefty bounty has been increased for him.
Ryan Wedding, 44, represented Canada in snowboarding at the Olympics way back in 2002, but leads a considerably different life now, according to the FBI.
Authorities have raised the reward for information that leads to the arrest of Wedding from $10 million to $15m and have gone as far to call him the modern-day Pablo Escobar.
The 44-year-old was responsible for ‘engineering a narco trafficking and narco terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time’, according to FBI director Kash Patel.
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Patel spoke at a recent press conference about the increase in bounty as well as the FBI’s determination to apprehend Wedding.
He said: “Make no mistake about it, Ryan Wedding is a modern day iteration of Pablo Escobar, a modern day iteration of El Chapo Guzman.
“This justice department and this FBI will work with our Canadian counterparts and the government officials across the world to bring him to justice.”
He went on to say: “It’s incredibly humbling for this FBI to be a part of it and to lead out the efforts on Ryan Wedding. And for those of you out there that have any information on Ryan Wedding, now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to help us.”
US Attorney General Pam Bondi has also alleged that Wedding is behind the murder of a federal witness in a case against him.
Bondi added Wedding has also been charged with witness tampering and intimidation, murder, money laundering and drug trafficking.
According to reports, Wedding allegedly paid C$10,000 ($7,000) to have photos of the witness and his wife posted to a Canada based website, the Dirty Newz.
The website shared the image in October 2024 and the site has since been removed by the FBI.
The witness, who was living in Colombia at the time, was shot and killed in a restaurant in Medellin in January.
According to the FBI agency, Wedding is behind the largest distributer of cocaine in Canada. They added that the organization that Wedding is affiliated with is estimated to bring in more than $1bn a year.
Akil Davis, the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, also commented on Wedding’s alleged shift to crime.
He said: “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.”
Authorities have claimed that the former Olympian launched his criminal enterprise after being released from a US federal prison in 2011, serving a sentence for cocaine distribution.
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Gerrard Kaonga