US, Canada, Mexico offer $10M reward for former Canadian Olympian

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA) – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) added former Canadian Olympian snowboarder Ryan Wedding to its 10 most-wanted list Thursday and offered a $10 million reward for the alleged drug kingpin.

The Los Angeles Police Department said that Wedding ran a network that used the city as a base to move huge quantities of drugs, including “five metric tons of fentanyl a month” as well as hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia north through Mexico and California into Canada.

The previous reward for information leading to Wedding’s capture was $50,000, but American authorities made it clear they really want Wedding, who competed for Canada in snowboarding in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah apprehended.

“The increase in the reward should make it clear there is nowhere safe for Wedding to hide,” Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said at a press conference Thursday, the CBC network reported.

“We will find you, disrupt your networks and bring you to justice,” he added.

Wedding is suspected of hiding in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel.

The press conference was attended by the FBI and the US State Department as the search continued. A manhunt was first launched by Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), in 2015. At the time, Wedding was charged as part of a cocaine import conspiracy, the CBC reported.

The reward “is offered in co-ordination with the governments of Canada and Mexico in a united effort to being Wedding to justice,” according to a statement from the State Department.

Wedding and his second-in-command, Canadian Andrew Clark, allegedly used hitmen to kill underworld enemies and are wanted in connection with four murders in Ontario, Canada. He also faces a slew of other charges, most related to illegal drugs.

“Wedding, believe it or not, is a former snowboarder who competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. But afterwards, he went downhill in a different way,” said the US State Department’s Cart Weiland, CTV News reported. “Wedding traded snow for another kind of powder, giving up world-class athletic pursuits for cocaine trafficking and involvement in murder.”