Among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a former Olympian accused of becoming a major drug trafficker.

Ryan Wedding, who represented Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Park City, Utah, is sought by the Department of Justice for allegedly heading an international drug smuggling network.

“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press conference on Nov. 19. “He is currently the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada. Wedding collaborates closely with the Sinaloa Cartel, a foreign terrorist organization, to flood not only American but also Canadian communities with cocaine coming from Colombia.”

During a press briefing, FBI director Kash Patel drew parallels between Wedding and infamous drug lords.

“Make no mistake,” he asserted, “Ryan Wedding is akin to the likes of Pablo Escobar and ‘El Chapo’ Guzman in today’s world.”

In 2024, Wedding was charged with leading this organized crime syndicate, leading to his inclusion on the FBI’s Most Wanted list earlier this March.

At the November press conference, Bondi announced that a new indictment had charged Wedding with additional counts of witness tampering and intimidation, murder, money laundering, and drug trafficking.

The new charges are connected to the January 2025 murder of a federal witness, which the Department of Justice have accused Wedding of ordering.

“[Wedding] used a Canadian website called The Dirty News to post photographs of the witness and his wife in order to locate him,” Bondi said, “which ultimately succeeded. The witness was gunned down in a restaurant in Medellín before he could testify against Wedding.”

First Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli added, “Wedding placed a bounty on the victim’s head in the erroneous belief that the victim’s death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him and his international drug trafficking ring, and would further ensure that he was not extradited to the United States. He was wrong.”

The Department of Justice also announced in November that 10 people had been arrested in accordance with the indictment, including a lawyer who allegedly advised Wedding.

The FBI has dubbed their efforts “Operation Giant Slalom”—an apparent reference to the former athlete’s Olympic event.

As of November, the bureau has increased their reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest to $15 million.