It was the last honorable thing Wedding ever did.
Even so, he posted a pitiful 24th place in the man’s parallel giant slalom.
But now, Wedding, 44, has finally hit the big time—he’s one of the latest additions to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and he rode in on a different kind of white, powdery snow: pure, highly illegal cocaine and deadly fentanyl, which he smuggles and peddles by the ton.
With a $15 million price tag on his head—three times the next highest reward—Wedding is believed to be hiding out in Mexico, through cooperation with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world.”
The Justice Department says he smuggles around 60 metric tons of cocaine every year into the US and he’s considered to be the largest distributor of cocaine into Canada.
“Ryan Wedding’s athletic drive snowballed into a life of violence and, instead of conquering mountains, he mastered a deadly drug distribution enterprise and will continue to order murders while he enjoys protection by his cartel associates and others,” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said.
The government doesn’t know exactly where the elusive Wedding is hiding—he could be your next-door neighbor, a Canadian resident, or living in Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala or Costa Rica.
In short, he’s been a ghost—a 6-foot-3, 240-pound, blue-eyed, brown-haired ghost.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of US cities and in his native Canada,” Davis said. “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.”
Wedding, known by the aliases “El Jefe,” “Giant,” “Public Enemy,” “James Conrad King” and “Jesse King,” has been indicted on multiple charges including drug trafficking, money laundering, witness tampering, operating a continuing criminal enterprise and multiple murders.
The FBI launched Operation Giant Slalom, named after Wedding’s erstwhile sport, and busted 10 defendants on various charges, including Deepak Balwant Paradkar, Wedding’s Canadian attorney.
Authorities say Paradkar advised Wedding to kill a government witness in order to destroy a case being built against him.
“Ryan Wedding has orchestrated murders against his rivals, against cooperating witnesses, against anybody that crosses his path,” Davis said.
On January 31, the federal witness against Wedding took five bullets to the head in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia.
“An Olympic athlete turned drug lord is now charged with leading a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and murder, including of innocent civilians,” said Martin Estrada, US Attorney for the Central District of California. “He chose to become a major drug trafficker and a killer.”
That was an easy transition for Wedding. He dropped snowboarding and moved into bodybuilding, which led to a stint as a nightclub bouncer. By 2006, he was running an illegal marijuana farm with 6,800 plants at Eighteen Carrot Farms.
From there he linked up with Iranian and Russian smugglers and flipped from marijuana to cocaine. Following his release from a 2010 prison sentence and after facing 2015 drug trafficking charges in Canada, he fled like Billy the Kid, heading for Mexico, where his marketing savvy, brutality and cryptocurrency laundering made him a valued operator for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Wedding has been on the run ever since. He was indicted in the US for cocaine trafficking and murder in 2024.
The “big guns” of law enforcement are now stepping up their efforts to bring Wedding down and put him in prison for life.
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said. “He is currently the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.”
“Make no mistake about it, Ryan Wedding is a modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar; he’s a modern iteration of El Chapo Guzmán,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “He will not evade justice.”
“You do not get to be a drug kingpin and evade the law.”
