A former Olympic athlete known as “The Giant” landed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for running a drug trafficking network linked to several murders, the FBI said Thursday.
Ryan Wedding, a Canadian national who competed as a snowboarder at the Salt Lake City games in 2002, landed on the agency’s list after being charged with running an international drug network that moved hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to North America. The 43-year-old is alleged to have had three people killed as part of the scheme, according to federal charging documents out of the Central District of California.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and in his native Canada,” said Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio authorized a $10 million reward for Wedding’s capture under the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, according to FBI officials.
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles first indicted Wedding and second-in-command Andrew Clark, 34, in June 2024. Clark, also a Canadian national, is in custody after being extradited from Mexico along with dozens of other drug traffickers last week, authorities said.
Wedding faces a minimum sentence of life in prison if convicted. Authorities have not ruled out him residing anywhere from Central America to Canada but believe he is in Mexico living under the protection of the Sinaloa drug cartel, according to Davis.
“Wedding, who is wealthy, is dangerous and has connections in high places,” Davis warned.
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‘From shredding powder…to distributing powder cocaine’
Wedding’s descent to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List marks a sharp change in course for the former Olympic snowboarder.
The Thunder Bay, Canada, native competed for his nation in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. He finished 24th overall in the parallel giant slalom competition, according to Olympic records.
Parallel giant slalom is known for the blistering speeds of up to 70 kmph competitors reach in a head to head race downhill between a series of gates.
Wedding’s athletic career faltered after Salt Lake and but he picked up speed in new ways.
By 2006, he was investigated in Canada for growing large quantities of marijuana though he wasn’t charged, Olympic records note. In 2010 he was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to buy cocaine from a U.S. government agent, according to Olympic records.
He returned to drug trafficking upon release and has been wanted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since 2015, according to a CBC News investigation.
‘Operation Giant Slalom’
American investigators became involved when it was discovered that he used Southern California as the hub of his drug trafficking network.
By the start of 2024, he had a network of Los Angeles-area stash houses receiving shipments of Colombian cocaine from Mexico. The drugs were moved in long-haul trucks to Canada, according to a federal indictment.
His network was moving around 60 metric tons of both cocaine and fentanyl through the Los Angeles region annually, said Los Angeles Police Department Chief of Detectives Alan Hamilton.
“His criminal enterprise leveraged Los Angeles transportation corridors to distribute staggering quantities of illicit drugs, devastating communities across the country,” Hamilton told reporters Thursday.
FBI authorities called the former Olympian’s operation “one of the most sophisticated drug trafficking networks in North America” and said U.S. authorities have been looking for him since at least last year under the guise of Operation Giant Slalom.
Charging documents allege Wedding orchestrated three murders between November 2023 and May 2024. Two of the killings were carried out in Ontario, Canada, in November 2023, authorities said. Jagtar Sidhu, 57, and his wife, Harbhajan Sidhu, 55, were targeted by mistake in a retribution slaying over a stolen shipment of cocaine, according to the CBC investigation. A third unnamed victim was murdered in May 2024 over a drug debt.
Wedding is the only Canadian the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted. Other fugitives on the list include a Bulgarian woman that defrauded investors of billions of dollars through cryptocurrency scams and a Haitian ganglord who orchestrated the kidnapping of 17 Christian missionaries in the country in 2021.
Olympic criminals
Wedding isn’t the only athlete to tumble far down Mount Olympus.
Steven van de Velde, who played for the Netherlands in front of the Eiffel Tower in the 2024 Paris Games, was convicted in 2016 for raping a 12-year-old English girl he met online. According to the MK Citizen’s 2016 account of the trial, van de Velde knew her age.
After a worldwide outcry and backlash erupted when he was announced as an Olympian, Dutch officials defended his inclusion in the Games but kept him away from the Olympic Village. Fans ultimately booed him at the games.
Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius went from being seen at the 2012 London Games as a model of overcoming adversity to a place of infamy after the South African sprinter was convicted of killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2015. He was sentenced to over a dozen years in prison.
Others strive for new forms of achievement.
Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, struggled with mental health and depression to the point of contemplating suicide. He has since channeled his energies into raising awareness for mental health through his foundation.
Michael Loria is a national reporter on the USA TODAY breaking news desk. Contact him at [email protected], @mchael_mchael or on Signal at (202) 290-4585.
