Where is Ryan Wedding now? What we know as former Olympic snowboarder-turned-drug kingpin accused of killing witness

Ryan Wedding, a former Olympian who was on the snowboarding team for Canada at the 2002 Winter Games, is one of the F.B.I.'s most wanted fugitives, accused of running an international drug ring and plotting to kill a witness.

As American and Canadian authorities continue their hunt, questions are mounting about where Wedding is today, and how he managed to become what they say was one of North America’s most powerful drug dealers.

Wedding, 44, is suspected to be hiding in Mexico with the support of the Sinaloa cartel, according to the U.S. Justice Department officials. The F.B.I. has increased the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million, and called him a “modern-day Pablo Escobar” after the size of the cartel he is accused of overseeing.

The US Department of State offers a reward of up to $15 million for info leading to the arrest &/or conviction of #FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive Ryan James Wedding, wanted for allegedly running & participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation: https://t.co/YyLpIU4Nmi pic.twitter.com/3DdiopiL9W

— FBI Most Wanted (@FBIMostWanted) November 19, 2025

His organization, federal investigators said, smuggled enormous amounts of cocaine through Mexico, Colombia and the United States into Canada at nearly $1 billion a year in sales.

U.S. officials announced new charges against Ryan Wedding this week, accusing him of having ordered the murder of a federal witness who was working with law enforcement officers investigating him.

As per ABC, Wedding supposedly used the blackmail profits to pay for his wedding, prosecutors said Monday. Wedding paid The Dirty Newz about $10,000 to post pictures of the witness and his wife on a website based in Canada in 2024. The reason, officials say, was to find the witness before he could testify.

More about how Ryan Wedding caused murder of the witness

The witness was allegedly gunned down in January at a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia. Prosecutors have said Wedding thought killing the witness would prevent him being extradited from Mexico, where he was believed to have lived for years under cartel protection.

Pam Bondi also stated that the former Olympian has also been charged with murder, witness tampering, conspiracy to distribute narcotics and drug trafficking and money laundering.

The murder is one component of a broad investigation that involves several countries. This week at least 10 people were arrested in relation to Ryan Wedding’s purported enterprise, some of them in Canada and the United States, as well as Mexico.

Ryan Wedding is one of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives - allegedly responsible for an untold amount of Americans suffering through narcotics trafficking. This week, the @FBI and great partners took down a major part of his network - 10+ arrests - and we’re one step closer to… pic.twitter.com/Kz8RGZZRrs

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) November 19, 2025

Among those arrested was Canadian lawyer Deepak Balwant Paradkar, who the prosecutors allege had offered illegal support. In fact, the complaint said Paradkar even recommended that the witness be murdered.

The authorities also arrested Gursewak Singh Bal, who they believe is a co-founder of The Dirty Newz, and Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, a longtime Colombian national said to have helped the cartel find the witness. A Quebec man, Atna Ohna, is charged with hiring the hitman and was reportedly given a jeweled necklace as payment for his participation.

Wedding’s evolution from athlete to accused cartel boss is among the case’s most shocking developments. After competing at the 2002 Winter Olympics, he went on to serve a U.S. federal prison sentence for dealing cocaine and officials say that his criminal empire was founded after he was released in 2011.