According to the FBI, tips are coming in about the whereabouts of fugitive Canadian ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding

More than three weeks after the FBI first offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to Ryan Wedding’s arrest, investigators say tips have been received. But the manhunt continues for the former Team Canada Olympic snowboarder accused of leading a murderous, transnational drug trafficking operation.

The FBI has and continues to receive information regarding the whereabouts of Ryan Wedding, FBI spokesperson Rukelt Dalberis told CBC News in an email. Tips received so far have not yet led to an arrest.

Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, faces eight felony charges in California and is accused of ordering three killings in the Toronto area. According to a U.S. federal indictment unsealed last month, the 43-year-old ran a $1 billion U.S. criminal enterprise, importing some 60 tons of Colombian cocaine annually, through Mexico and California, and then to other parts of the USA and Canada.

U.S. court records obtained by CBC show that a thirteenth member of his alleged crime ring was recently arrested in Los Angeles and indicted on drug trafficking and firearms charges. Four other associates, including an alleged hitman known as Mr Perfect, will appear in a Toronto courtroom this week as the US seeks their extradition.

Of the sixteen co-defendants (including ten Canadians) named in the indictment, only Wedding and two others are still on the run.

The manhunt faces several hurdles. A U.S. federal prosecutor said Wedding may be hiding in Mexico or anywhere in Latin America and is being protected by the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

In addition, CBC has learned that the most recent photo of Wedding — distributed by the FBI last month and broadcast around the world — was actually taken 11 years ago for a Canadian driver’s license. In it, the seven-foot-tall wedding is seen with long, thinning brown hair and a beard. But the timing suggests he may have changed his appearance since then.

Kenneth Gray, a former FBI special agent, said in Wedding’s case that may not have been necessary.

If he is in an area where he has the cooperation of the local police, Gray said in an interview: Maybe he lives off the money he has.

CBC previously reported that Wedding was not seen in Mexico City until January, when a longtime associate turned FBI employee met him and his second-in-command (and fellow Canadian), Andrew Clark.

Clark, a former Toronto landlord, was arrested a month ago near an upscale shopping center in Mexico’s Guadalajara region in a dramatic operation involving heavily armed forces. As a measure of the secrecy surrounding the arrest, local police later told CBC not resolved the operation, and that it was led by the authorities of the Mexican capital, some 500 kilometers away.

According to US authorities, Wedding and Clark orchestrated the November 2023 shooting performance style shooting death of an Indian couple, Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, in Caledon, Ont. Their 28-year-old daughter Jaspreet was shot thirteen times (new window)but survived.

These murders were truly the definition of evil, Martin Estrada, a Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney leading Wedding’s prosecution in California, told CBC, adding that the family completely innocent. He said the Sidhus were wrongly targeted because of a stolen drug shipment that passed through Southern California.

Investigators also linked two other fatal shootings in nearby Brampton and Niagara Falls, Ont. to the same organization. Ontario Provincial Police said they are still investigating whether more attacks may be connected.

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FBI receives tips on the whereabouts of former Olympian, accused drug lord Ryan Wedding

The FBI tells CBC News it has received tips about the possible whereabouts of Canadian former Olympic snowboarder and suspected drug lord Ryan Wedding, who is also wanted in connection with three murders in the Toronto area.

On the run since 2015

At the 2002 Olympics, Wedding, then a promising young snowboarder based in Coquitlam, BC, placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom event. Within four years, there were indications of his involvement in the Canadian criminal underworld.

According to his official Olympic profile (new window)Thunder Bay, Ontario native Wedding was named in a 2006 search warrant targeting a large marijuana farm in Maple Ridge, B.C.

He was not charged at the time, but was imprisoned two years later.

After flying to Los Angeles in June 2008, Wedding was arrested along with two other associates from BC for a conspiracy to buy 24 kilos of cocaine on behalf of a Vancouver-based criminal network.

During the trial, the jury heard about Wedding’s involvement in sending money across the border to secure the shipment of medications. In a recording made by an FBI informant, Wedding asked: Did you expect me to put the money in my damn suitcase?

He was sentenced to four years in prison. But beforehand, court records reviewed by CBC show he begged a San Diego judge to spare him a lengthy sentence.

As an athlete I have always been taught that there are no second chances, and here I am asking for exactly that. Wedding said.

Thomas Daigle (new window) · CBC News