U.S. lays more charges, ups reward for Ryan Wedding, Canadian Olympian turned alleged drug lord
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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel outlined their case on Wednesday against Ryan Wedding, a former Team Canada Olympian who they say became one of the most powerful drug lords in the world.
Bondi and Patel held a news conference in Washington, D.C., alongside RCMP commissioner Michael Duheme.
Wedding, an alleged Canadian drug lord who competed for Canada as a snowboarder at the 2002 Olympic Games in Utah, is listed as one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives.
Bondi said the U.S. Department of Justice is charging Wedding with “two additional counts of witness tampering and intimidation, money laundering and drug trafficking.”
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world,” Bondi said.
Wedding is accused of murdering a federal witness after he was indicted in 2024 through the use of a now deleted website called “The Dirty News,” where photographs of the witness and his wife were displayed to locate him, Bondi said.
The witness was gunned down in a restaurant in Medellin, Columbia, before he could testify against Wedding, Bondi said.
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $15 million US for Wedding’s capture, up from $10 million.
More than 35 people indicted
She emphasized that “drugs are killing our kids,” and the U.S. would pursue both street-level drug dealers and international drug kingpins.
“We are coming for you. We will find you. And you will be accountable and held to justice for your crimes,” Bondi said.
She said he is responsible for importing 60 metric tonnes a year into Los Angeles via semi-trailer trucks from Mexico.
Bondi added that over the course of the investigation, more than 35 people have been indicted.
She noted that more than 2,000 kilograms of cocaine and numerous weapons have been seized and about $3.2 million in cryptocurrency was recovered.
She also said $13 million in physical assets have been confiscated.
‘Modern-day’ Pablo Escobar
FBI director Kash Patel likened Wedding to a “modern-day iteration” of Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and implored citizens to report information they may have on the accused.
Patel said Wedding is responsible for “engineering a narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time.”
Patel added that the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI will “lead the effort to go out there and make sure that these animals are brought to justice.”
At the news conference, RCMP commissioner Duheme said there had been good co-operation between law enforcement across borders but added, “our work is not done.”
“Fugitive Ryan Wedding remains one of the top threats to Canadian public safety,” he said.
In another development related to the case, according to Radio-Canada, Atna Onha, 40, who goes by the name Tupac or 2-Pac, appeared in Montreal court by videoconference on Tuesday and is facing extradition to the U.S.
He is facing charges related to a murder and cocaine trafficking, but the details of the charges against him have been sealed.
He is reported to have ties to biker gangs and the Mafia in Montreal, according to Radio-Canada sources.
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