Fugitive ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding's drug ring still active in Canada, RCMP says
CBC
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 RCMP has said Wedding's network has been "commissioning murders across North America, and laundering significant proceeds of crime."
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $10-million US for information leading to his arrest.
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.
Earlier this year, a U.S. State Department official publicly asked Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum to personally intervene to ensure Wedding's capture.
"We hope she will soon take action against major narco-traffickers like Ryan Wedding," Cartwright Weiland, a senior official with the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, said at a UN conference in March.
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.
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