Canadian fugitive ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding seen in new FBI photo
Wedding is seen in an unknown location with a different look from a previously released headshot
The FBI has released a new photo of Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder accused of running a transnational drug trafficking network.
The new photo shows Wedding staring at a mobile phone while seated at what appears to be a restaurant table. His look is dramatically different from the 2013 headshot that the FBI previously published.
"Agents believe [the new photo] was taken in 2024," FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller told CBC News in an email.
She said she didn't have the precise location of where it was taken.
U.S. authorities announced last month that Wedding, 43, is charged with eight felonies in California, including murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime. Investigators allege his crime ring orchestrated at least four violent killings in Ontario in the past year.
Wedding competed for Canada at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah and placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom snowboard competition.
CBC previously reported that the widely distributed photo of Wedding, showing him with long, thinning hair and a dark beard, was taken for a Canadian driver's licence in 2013. In the newly released picture, the six-foot-three former athlete is seen with short hair and appears heavier-set.
According to a U.S. federal indictment, Wedding ran a $1-billion US criminal enterprise importing some 60 tons of Colombian cocaine a year, through Mexico and California, then onto other parts of the U.S. and Canada.
"This group was ruthless and violent," Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, told reporters in Los Angeles last month.
"They would use contract killers to assassinate anyone who they saw as an obstacle to their operation."
Wedding has been on the run since at least 2015, when the RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest. At the time, Mounties laid five charges against Wedding, in connection with cocaine imports and trafficking.
The FBI said last week it had been receiving information on Wedding's whereabouts, but no tips had led to an arrest yet. The agency is offering a reward of up to $50,000 US for information leading to Wedding's arrest.
Born in Thunder Bay, Ont., Wedding later lived in Coquitlam, B.C., and Montreal. In recent years, U.S. authorities said he has lived in Mexico and may now be hiding out anywhere in Latin America.
He was previously convicted in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy in California and sentenced to a four-year prison term in 2010.
"Upon his release, we believe he went back to drug trafficking and, in fact, built this prolific and ruthless organization," Estrada said.
The U.S. indictment unsealed last month lists 18 aliases for Wedding, including James Conrad King, El Jefe (The Boss) and Public Enemy.
According to court records, Wedding was seen in Mexico City in January, when a longtime associate-turned-FBI co-operator met him and his second-in-command (and fellow Canadian), Andrew Clark.
Clark, a former Toronto landlord, was arrested a month ago near an upmarket shopping mall in Mexico's Guadalajara area, in a dramatic operation involving heavily armed troops.
Wedding and Clark both face murder charges for the November 2023 shooting deaths of an Indian couple, Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, in Caledon, Ont. Their 28-year-old daughter Jaspreet was shot 13 times, but survived. Investigators have said the family members were innocent, and were mistakenly targeted.
Four other Canadian associates of Wedding, arrested Oct. 16 in Toronto, were ordered Wednesday to again appear in Ontario Superior Court on Dec. 4, as the U.S. seeks their extradition. Court heard U.S. authorities haven't yet provided all the evidence needed for Canadian officials to consider extradition.