Reward for Ex-Olympic Snowboarder Upped to $15M

Ryan Wedding was once a Canadian Olympic snowboarder. Now he's "a modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar. He's a modern-day iteration of 'El Chapo' Guzman," said FBI Director Kash Patel Wednesday in announcing the reward for the 44-year-old's capture has been raised to $15 million (it had been upped to $10 million in March). The CBC reports Patel was joined by Attorney General Pam Bondi and RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme at a new conference in which Bondi said the DOJ is charging the alleged drug kingpin with "two additional counts of witness tampering and intimidation, money laundering, and drug trafficking."

Wedding, who participated in the 2002 Games and now sits on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, allegedly orchestrated the January 2025 killing of a federal witness at a restaurant in Colombia and is accused of directing dozens of numbers in North America and Latin America. ABC News reports the new charges against Wedding relate to the murder of that witness, who died instantly after being shot five times in the head. Officials allege Wedding "placed a bounty on the victim's head in the erroneous belief that the victim's death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him." Wedding and 14 others, his lawyer among them, are charged with orchestrating the murder.

According to law enforcement, Wedding's operation has trafficked more than $1 billion worth of cocaine from Colombia and Mexico into the US and Canada. "He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world," Bondi said. "His organization is responsible for importing approximately six metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles via semi trucks from Mexico."

Fox News reports Wedding's first brush with the law came in 2006 when he was named in connection with a major marijuana grow in British Columbia, though no charges were filed at the time. He was arrested in the US in 2009 on cocaine charges, served four years, and later faced additional drug charges in Nova Scotia in 2015 before disappearing. He is believed to use several aliases, including "El Jefe," "Giant," "Jesse King," and "Public Enemy."