The United States announced this Wednesday (19) that it has increased the reward for information leading to the capture of Canadian Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder accused of drug trafficking, from US$10 million to US$15 million.
The Donald Trump administration also imposed financial sanctions against Wedding, as well as nine other people and nine companies linked to him.
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in the world. He is currently the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference.
She added that Wedding collaborates closely with the Sinaloa Cartel and is responsible for trafficking approximately 60 tons of Colombian cocaine to Los Angeles annually, using trucks from Mexico.
Wedding is accused in the United States of heading a criminal organization, murder and conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Bondi today announced new charges against the Canadian, for witness intimidation and murder, after a federal witness in the case was killed with five shots to the head in Medellín in January so that he would not testify against Wedding.
According to the FBI, Wedding’s lawyer was arrested today in Canada on charges of having recommended to the former athlete that the witness be murdered. U.S. authorities believe Wedding is currently in Mexico.
Wedding, 44 years old, represented Canada at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. In the competition, he achieved a mediocre 24th place. After the Olympics, he abandoned high-performance sports.
In 2004, Wedding left university studies and began working in the real estate market, where he financed his investments by cultivating marijuana.
In 2006, the property where he produced the drug was the target of an operation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP, equivalent to the Federal Police in Brazil), but Wedding was not there at the time of the action and was not charged due to lack of evidence.
Afterwards, the former Olympic athlete began to dedicate himself to cocaine trafficking, which led to him being sentenced by the United States Court to four years in prison in 2010.
After being released after serving part of his sentence and being deported to Canada in 2011, Wedding became an even more dangerous criminal, according to American authorities, by associating himself with the feared Sinaloa Cartel – an activity for which he earned the nicknames “El Jefe”, “Giant” and “Public Enemy”, among others.
In addition to the trafficking itself, he is accused of several murders. “Wedding went from sliding in the snow on the tracks at the Olympics to distributing powdered cocaine on the streets of American cities and in his home country, Canada,” declared Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI office in Los Angeles, in March this year, when the former Olympic athlete was included on the list of the ten most wanted criminals by the American federal police.
“The alleged murders of your competitors [no tráfico de drogas] make Wedding a very dangerous man, and his inclusion on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, along with a large reward offered by the State Department, will make the public partner with us so we can capture him before he puts anyone else in danger,” Davis added at the time.
