Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding
Wanted By FBI For Running Drug Ring
… $10 Million Reward
Published
A former Olympian has traded in snowboard competitions for a spot on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives list in connection with allegedly running a transnational narcotics ring.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved a $10 million reward for the capture of Ryan Wedding, who was on Canada’s snowboarding team in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
At a press conference, Akil Davis — the chief of the FBI’s L.A. office — said Wedding “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States.”
Davis also said Wedding arranged several murders and one attempted assassination as part of his alleged crimes.
Wedding is charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to export cocaine, continuing criminal enterprise, and murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime.
Davis added, “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.”
In addition to the State Department’s substantial reward, the FBI is offering $50,000 to anyone with info leading to Wedding’s arrest.
The FBI says Wedding, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 240 pounds, goes by a handful of aliases, including, “El Jefe,” “Giant,” “Public Enemy,” and “James Conrad King.”
The feds arrested one of Wedding’s alleged cohorts, Andrew Clark, in October last year. Clark is slated to be arraigned Monday on similar federal charges in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
