Ryan Wedding is a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, placing 24th in men's giant slalom, but later became a fugitive accused of leading a massive transnational drug trafficking organization.

Early Athletic Career

Wedding rose to prominence in snowboarding during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He secured a bronze medal at the 1999 Junior World Championships and silver in 2001 before representing Canada at the Olympics. After the Games, he briefly attended Simon Fraser University, worked as a bouncer, and dabbled in real estate and marijuana cultivation, though a major raid in 2006 yielded no charges against him.

Descent into Crime

By 2008, Wedding's path shifted dramatically when he was arrested in San Diego for attempting to buy 24 kilograms of cocaine from an undercover FBI agent as part of a Vancouver-based trafficking ring. Convicted in 2010, he served nearly four years in U.S. prison before release in 2011, allegedly launching his own empire trafficking cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, and meth—up to 60 metric tons of cocaine annually into Los Angeles via Mexico. He fled to Mexico around 2015, evading Canadian charges, and built ties with the Sinaloa Cartel for protection.

Major Charges and Fugitive Status

In October 2024, U.S. authorities charged Wedding with leading a violent criminal group under "Operation Giant Slalom," including drug trafficking, conspiracy, money laundering, three murders (Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu in 2023, Mohammed Zafar in 2024), and an attempted murder. Additional allegations involve ordering a federal witness's killing in Colombia in January 2025 and witness intimidation. By March 2025, he joined the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list (replacing Alexis Flores), with a reward escalating to $15 million by November 2025 amid arrests of associates like his wife Miryam Andrea Castillo Moreno and lawyer Deepak Balwant Paradkar.

Network and Operations

Wedding, known as "El Jefe" or "Giant," allegedly runs a sophisticated operation using cryptocurrency for laundering, luxury assets for concealment (like a $13M Mercedes seized by FBI), and hitmen trained at tactical camps. Key enablers include Mexican protector Edgar Aaron Vazquez Alvarado ("the General"), Colombian associates like Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, and money launderers Rolan Sokolovski and Gianluca Tiepolo, hit with U.S. Treasury sanctions in November 2025. As of late 2025, he remains at large in Mexico, fostering a "climate of fear" through retaliatory violence.

Recent Developments

November 2025 saw six more arrests, including Wedding's attorney, and U.S.-Mexico coordination to dismantle his network. His story—from national hero to one of the world's most wanted—highlights missed opportunities, as his mother noted: "You can have every opportunity and still take the wrong path."

TL;DR: Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding, now FBI's top fugitive, allegedly heads a violent cocaine empire linked to murders and global trafficking, hiding in cartel-protected Mexico with a $15M bounty.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.