Ex-Olympian on the run
$15 million bounty for ex-snowboarder Wedding
Updated 11/20/2025 – 2:20 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding is wanted for drug smuggling and murder. The FBI has now drastically increased the bounty on him.
Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder, is at the center of an international manhunt. The US Federal Police, FBI, has now increased the bounty on him to 15 million dollars (13 million euros). Wedding is accused of being a drug lord and smuggling cocaine on a large scale from Colombia via Mexico to the USA and Canada. He is said to be hiding in Mexico.
The 44-year-old Canadian took part in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and finished 24th in the parallel giant slalom. He is now on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Criminals list. Kash Patel, FBI chief, described Wedding as a “modern version” of notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. He stated that Wedding was running “a drug trafficking and drug terrorism program the likes of which we have not seen in a long time.”
FBI investigator Akil Davis described Wedding as “extremely dangerous,” “extremely violent,” and “extremely rich,” and emphasized that Wedding was under the protection of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.
In Canada, investigators have meanwhile arrested seven suspected accomplices of Wedding, including his lawyer. He is said to have advised Wedding to kill a witness in order to stop criminal proceedings against him. U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the witness was shot five times in the head at a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January.
The operator of the website “The Dirty News” was also arrested. According to investigators, he was paid to post a photo of the witness on his website to make it easier to find and kill him. The investigation is being conducted under the name “Operation Giant Slalom,” as Canadian police chief Michael Duheme explained.