From Olympic athlete to being wanted for ordering killings: the story of Ryan James Wedding

Ryan James Wedding, a former Olympic athlete from Canada, was accused on Thursday, along with 15 other suspects, of running a violent drug trafficking network that routinely brought “hundreds of kilograms of cocaine” from Colombia to North America, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Who is Ryan James Wedding?

The 43-year-old ex-athlete, who represented Canada in the snowboarding event at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, is accused of leading the group that transported the drugs through Mexico into Southern California, from where they were then distributed to other American states and Canada. He is also charged with orchestrating the murders of four people and another attempted murder.

Federal prosecutor for the Central District of California, Martin Estrada, stated during a press conference in Los Angeles that Wedding chose to become “a major drug trafficker and murderer” instead of continuing his sports career. The federal investigation has led to charges against 16 individuals in total, several of whom have already been arrested.

“The cocaine shipments were transported from Mexico to the Los Angeles area, where the organization stored them in stash houses before handing them off to transportation couriers who used long-haul trucks to move the drugs to Canada,” the DOJ said in a statement.

$50,000 FBI reward for Wedding information

Wedding, whose aliases include “El Jefe,” “Gigante” and “Enemigo Público,” is on the run while his second-in-command, Andrew Clark, 34, of Canadian nationality, was arrested in Mexico.

Akil Davis, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said the former Olympian “cultivated a violent transnational drug trafficking empire” that stretched from Canada to the United States, Mexico and Colombia. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to Wedding’s arrest.

Florida-based businessman and music producer Nahim Jorge Bonilla, owner of Mandrake and Ruido Callejero Music, is also named in the indictment. Local media reported that his mansion on Island Estates Drive was raided and he was arrested.