Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, who has gained infamy as a Mexico-based drug lord, was sanctioned by the United States on Wednesday.
Wedding goes by many nicknames, including “El Jefe,” “Giant,” and “Public Enemy,” as well as descriptors, such as a “modern-day Pablo Escobar.” His descent into crime came soon after he competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, beginning with a marijuana farm before escalating to cocaine. He was first arrested by the U.S. in a 2008 sting, for which he was sentenced to four years in prison. After leaving prison, he moved to Mexico and drastically up-scaled his enterprise with ruthless efficiency, growing it to a network capable of transporting 60 metric tons of cocaine into the U.S. and Canada across the southern border.
Who is Ryan Wedding?
Wedding’s family, stable and well-off, expressed confusion about his sudden turn to crime in an interview with a Rolling Stone reporter in 2009.
The Olympian began snowboarding at age 12 and competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics at age 20. He was noted for his exceptional daring nature, often eschewing precautions.
“He had no fear,” former national champion ski racer Bobby Allison told the outlet in 2009. “A lot of kids, they say they want to go fast, but they don’t really want to go fast. They hold something back, because there’s a little bit of fear there of falling. Ryan had none of that.”
Despite this, Wedding miscalculated and missed passing on to the second round by just one second. After the disappointment, he enrolled at Simon Fraser University, though he dropped out after two years in favor of his marijuana-growing venture.
He showed little remorse after his 2008 arrest, and after being released, made contact with Jaochim “El Chapo” Guzman’s growing operation in Canada. Despite his hulking 6-foot-3-inch stature, Wedding suddenly disappeared in the mid-2010s, under protection from the Sinaloa cartel. Officials have been unable to determine his exact whereabouts for around a decade and have only released two reliable photos of him since his release, both taken in 2024.
What is he accused of?
A press release from the Treasury Department described Wedding as an “extremely violent criminal believed to be responsible for the murder of numerous people abroad, including U.S. citizens.” Also sanctioned were nine entities and nine close associates of Wedding. These include a Canadian lawyer, his wife, his girlfriend, a former Italian special forces soldier, and a former Mexican police officer known as “the General,” who uses his high-level law enforcement connections to track and murder Wedding’s rivals.
Gianluca Tiepolo, the former special forces soldier, allegedly founded the company Windrose Tactical Solutions S.R.L.S. to operate “military-style tactical training camps that have trained many of Wedding’s hitmen.”
Wedding’s Canadian attorney, Deepak Balwant Paradkar, allegedly allowed the former Olympian to eavesdrop on private conversations with his other clients, often his rivals, to obtain information and organize hits.
“Today we’re exposing the network of associates and enablers behind Ryan Wedding — one of the most notorious criminals and narcotraffickers still evading justice,” John Hurley, undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement. “Treasury is joining with the FBI and the Department of Justice to cut Wedding and his criminal partners off from the U.S. financial system and help dismantle the network they rely on. Our goal is simple: make it difficult for criminals like this to profit from poisoning our communities.”
Wedding has pursued violent means across the Western Hemisphere to crush his rivals and protect his billion-dollar enterprise, personally ordering dozens of hits across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. In one Ontario hit, Wedding’s gunmen misidentified their target, instead murdering an innocent couple.
The Treasury noted that Wedding “employs highly sophisticated methods in both the planning and execution of these killings, demonstrating a level of coordination and ruthlessness that has made him one of the world’s most dangerous fugitives.”
His second-in-command, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, was arrested in Mexico in October 2024 before being extradited to the U.S. in February.
Wedding currently leads the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list with the highest number of charges, including conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine; conspiracy to export cocaine; conspiracy to commit murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime and murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime; conspiracy to tamper with a witness, victim, or informant, and tampering with a witness, victim, or informant; conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, victim, or informant and retaliation against a witness, victim, or informant; and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
How close is law enforcement to catching him?
The Treasury also said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California would level additional charges against Wedding and his network. The new sanctions were coordinated with the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera, Mexico’s financial intelligence unit. The State Department approved raising his bounty from $10 million to up to $15 million.
Authorities are largely mum about the state of the investigation. However, one law enforcement official familiar with the matter told the outlet in January that he believes Wedding’s arrest is close.
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“His transportation network has been disrupted, but if he can get it up and running, the Sinaloa cartel will continue to protect him,” the official said.
“He was a big earner, and as long as he can keep paying a tax, he’ll be protected” by the Sinaloa cartel, they added.