Canadian alleged drug kingpin Ryan Wedding has been added to the FBI’s list of 10 most-wanted fugitives, as the reward offered for information leading to his arrest has been increased to $10 million US.
The FBI and U.S. State Department made the announcements at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, raising the stakes in a manhunt first launched by the RCMP in 2015.
Wedding, who competed for Canada as a snowboarder at the 2002 Olympic Games in Utah, faces U.S. federal charges related to three murders, a cocaine trafficking conspiracy and for “leading a continuing criminal enterprise.”
The L.A. Police Department said Wedding’s alleged network used the city as its primary transport hub to move vast quantities of drugs, including “five metric tonnes of fentanyl per month” to U.S. and Canadian cities.
“The increase in the reward should make it clear: there is nowhere safe for Wedding to hide,” LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton told reporters.
The FBI also released a new photo of Wedding, 43, in a blue baseball cap and displaying prominent tattoos and a gold watch on one arm. The FBI declined to say where the picture was taken, but said Wedding is believed to be living in Mexico, under the protection of the notorious Sinaloa cartel.
“Wedding, who is wealthy, is dangerous and has connections in very high places,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Thursday that law enforcement officials believe the former Canadian Olympic snowboarder is in Mexico, possibly under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel, though he noted investigators have not ruled out that Wedding may be elsewhere.
Wedding and 15 alleged accomplices, including his “second-in-command,” fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, were indicted in a federal grand jury indictment unsealed in Los Angeles last October. The RCMP laid charges against Wedding as part of a cocaine importation conspiracy in 2015. He’s been on the run ever since.
CBC News reported this week that court documents suggest Wedding is still trafficking drugs while in hiding.
The FBI was previously offering a reward of up to $50,000 US for information leading to Wedding’s arrest. The new amount of up to $10 million “is offered in coordination with the governments of Canada and Mexico in a unified effort to bring Wedding to justice,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
The U.S. indictment lists 18 aliases for Wedding, including James Conrad King, El Jefe (The Boss) and Public Enemy.
According to the prosecutors, Wedding and Clark used hitmen to kill underworld enemies. Their alleged victims include an Indian couple, shot in a rented home in Caledon, Ont., as they visited their adult children. Their daughter was shot 13 times but survived.
According to authorities, the family was mistakenly targeted in a dispute over a stolen cocaine shipment.
Mexican authorities transferred Clark — Wedding’s alleged top lieutenant — to U.S. custody last week as part of a major extradition operation targeting cartel-linked figures. Clark, 34, was captured last October in a dramatic operation involving the Mexican navy at a restaurant in the Guadalajara area.
Acting U.S. attorney Joseph T. McNally revealed Clark was let out on bail in Mexico “in recent weeks… somewhat inexplicably.” McNally did not disclose how Clark was recaptured afterward.
CBC News has reported extensively on the case since last fall, when the sweeping U.S. indictment was unsealed. Previous developments include:
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While in prison in 2011, Wedding married a B.C. businesswoman who was later named in two investigations involving money laundering. At the time, Wedding appeared to be forging ties that put him at the crossroads of Mexican cartels and Iranian-linked criminal networks.
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Another Canadian co-defendant was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on his Florida mansion, once owned by music star DJ Khaled. Nahim Jorge Bonilla is accused of shipping meth to Quebec to settle a drug debt with Wedding.
