The murderous drug-trafficking network allegedly run by former Team Canada Olympian Ryan Wedding remains active in Canada despite efforts to dismantle the cartel-linked group, the RCMP has confirmed to CBC News.
Wedding was added this year to the FBI’s list of ten most-wanted fugitives. He’s accused of running a $1-billion US criminal enterprise that routinely shipped tonnes of fentanyl and cocaine throughout North America, and that has been linked to at least four killings in Ontario.
“There certainly are elements of his network that remain in place,” RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather said Friday, during an unrelated news conference at the Mounties’ Ontario headquarters in London.
Leather, the RCMP’s officer in charge of criminal operations for the province, said Wedding’s alleged drug-trafficking organization remains a target of “multiple ongoing investigations,” involving the federal police agency, Toronto police and Ontario Provincial Police.
The Thunder Bay, Ont.-born Wedding competed for Canada as a snowboarder at the 2002 Olympic Games. Now 43, he’s been on the run from the RCMP since 2015 when he faced charges related to a cocaine-importing conspiracy.
Wedding was also indicted in California last fall, along with 15 alleged accomplices including nine fellow Canadians. He faces eight felony charges, including drug-trafficking offences and murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise that used stash houses to store drugs in the Los Angeles area.
“The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man,” Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s L.A. field office said in March.
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $10-million US for information leading to his arrest.
Ryan Wedding’s path from Olympian to most-wanted fugitive
U.S. prosecutors have said Wedding is suspected of living in Mexico, under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel, once headed by notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Authorities have also suggested he could be hiding out in Canada, the U.S., Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, or elsewhere.
U.S. prosecutors have said Wedding continues to traffic drugs while in hiding.
Liam Price, the RCMP’s director general of international special services, said earlier this year Wedding “continues to pose one of the largest organized crime threats to Canada, even as a fugitive.”
Four of Wedding’s co-defendants, who were arrested in Toronto last October, remain in custody in a local jail and face extradition to the U.S.
His alleged right-hand man, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, was arrested in Mexico last fall and transferred to U.S. custody in February.
The U.S. indictment unsealed last October lists 18 aliases for Wedding, including James Conrad King, Jesse King, El Jefe (“The Boss”), Public Enemy, Giant and Grande.
