The U.S. Department of State is offering a $10 million reward for the capture of a former Olympic snowboarder Ryan wedding accused of running a major transnational drug trafficking organization and orchestrating multiple murders, authorities announced Thursday. Ryan Wedding, 43, a Canadian national, has also been added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office revealed Thursday. Wedding is wanted for allegedly running a drug trafficking network “that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, and for orchestrating multiple murders and an attempted murder in furtherance of these drug crimes,” the FBI said in a press release. He was indicted last year in Los Angeles federal court on multiple federal charges, including running a continuing criminal enterprise, committing murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and assorted drug crimes, the FBI 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,” Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said in a statement on Thursday. “The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man, and his addition to the list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, coupled with a major reward offer by the State Department, will make the public our partner so that we can catch up with him before he puts anyone else in danger.”
The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs’ $10 million reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest and/or conviction was authorized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the FBI said. The reward is in addition to a $50,000 reward already offered by the FBI for information leading to Wedding’s apprehension, arrest and extradition, the agency said.