Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding ceremony was a “fearless” competitor who desperately wished to grow to be a family identify — and when his desires had been crushed, “his quest for cash and energy bought to him in a foul means,” in keeping with a former teammate.
Wedding ceremony, who competed for Canada on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, pleaded not responsible Monday to 17 federal felony expenses together with drug trafficking, witness tampering and conspiracy to commit homicide.
The 44-year-old, whose alleged aliases embody “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” was arrested in Mexico final week, 10 months after being added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wished Fugitives Listing.
“He was such a promising expertise with massive ambitions — utterly fearless. However perhaps his quest for cash and energy bought to him in a foul means,” a teammate who competed with Wedding ceremony in his snowboarding days informed The Put up. “He all the time wished to be a giant identify, and wasn’t the kind to let something cease him from getting what he wished.”
Wedding ceremony is now being held in Santa Ana with out bond.
Authorities imagine he’s an affiliate of the Sinaloa cartel and imported tens of millions of {dollars}’ value of cocaine from Colombia by way of Mexico, storing it in southern California earlier than sending it throughout the US and Canada.
He’s additionally accused of getting ordered “a number of murders of victims and authorities witnesses.”
Wedding ceremony was believed to be hiding out in Mexico for greater than a decade.
Calling Wedding ceremony one in all “the biggest narco traffickers in trendy occasions,” FBI Director Kash Patel added final week: “He’s a modern-day El Chapo, he’s a modern-day Pablo Escobar, and he thought he may evade justice.”
It’s a far cry from the younger boy who received his first snowboarding race on the age of 12 and who would reportedly go to mattress cuddling his teddy bear whereas older teammates had been out partying. However insiders say Wedding ceremony, whose grandparents owned a ski membership, all the time had drive.
“A whole lot of youngsters, they are saying they need to go quick, however they don’t actually need to go quick. They maintain one thing again, as a result of there’s a little bit little bit of concern there of falling. Ryan had none of that,” Bobby Allison, a former nationwide champion ski racer, informed Rolling Stone.
Wedding ceremony’s was simply 15 when he first made the Canadian nationwide crew and 20 when he made it to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis.
“He had an excellent household and life,” his teammate mentioned.
However desires of glory had been ruined when Wedding ceremony completed in twenty fourth place within the males’s parallel big slalom, with the teammate saying excessive climate situations threw him for a loop.
“He actually began to alter after that. He was not completely satisfied about his efficiency there,” the teammate mentioned. “He all the time wished to win.”
After blowing his massive shot, Wedding ceremony seemingly gave up.
He enrolled at Simon Fraser College in Vancouver, BC, together with his dad and mom — an engineer and a nurse — pushing him to grow to be a stockbroker or be part of his dad’s engineering agency.
However Wedding ceremony additionally labored as a bouncer in nightclubs frequented by gang members, in keeping with a profile in Toronto Life.
It reportedly wasn’t lengthy earlier than he began imitating the gangsters’ type — sporting costly watches, bulking up on the health club and creating a style for flashy automobiles.
Wedding ceremony, sources mentioned, was now taking part in a far riskier sport than competing on the slopes.
By 2004, he had dropped out of school and native police began wanting into his function in an enormous marijuana develop operation in Maple Ridge, British Colombia,
In 2006, the operation was raided, turning up loaded weapons, 6,800 marijuana crops and 86 kilos of dried weed — an estimated 10 million {dollars}’ value. It was later linked to Wedding ceremony, although authorities mentioned on the time they didn’t have sufficient proof to cost him.
Two years later, Wedding ceremony was arrested by federal authorities in California after he traveled to San Diego with two males to purchase cocaine from a supply who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, in keeping with paperwork.
Serving time in jail, prosecutors say, Wedding ceremony used the time and new connections to concoct an excellent higher-stakes scheme.
“[The conviction] actually did simply flip him right into a a lot better drug supplier than he ever was when he began … ,” Brett Kalina, a now-retired supervisory particular agent, informed CBC Information.
After a decide lowered his sentence from 10 years to 4, Wedding ceremony moved to Montreal and, allegedly, grew to become very shut with a supplier, Philipos Kollaros, who, in keeping with courtroom information, had ties to Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa cartel.
As The Put up beforehand reported, Tony Wayne, a former ambassador to Mexico who’s an professional in drug-trafficking between that nation and the US, mentioned it’s common for non-Mexicans to be liaisons or level folks inside a bigger Mexican-run cartel — however it’s uncommon one for one to be in control of an enormous enterprise themselves.
“I haven’t heard of many white males from Canada concerned on this degree, that’s for certain,” Wayne mentioned.
Which made Wedding ceremony’s alleged operation all of the extra surprising.
Prosecutors say he oversaw a cross-border trafficking operation that moved cocaine from South America by way of Mexico and Southern California into Canada.
Round 2015, Wedding ceremony unwittingly met with an undercover operative from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Montreal to debate a plan to visitors a “mega-import” of as much as 5,000 kilograms of cocaine, value a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}, in keeping with the Montreal Gazette.
It was, authorities say, arrange by Wedding ceremony’s previous pal Kollaros.
When officers later arrived at Wedding ceremony’s Montreal rental with a warrant, they had been too late. One thing or somebody had apparently tipped him off, and he disappeared.
Over the subsequent decade in Mexico, investigators allege, Wedding ceremony constructed one a cocaine-smuggling operation as massive as ones run by infamous cartels and producing greater than $1 billion yearly.
The person referred to as “El Jefe” additionally developed a popularity for intimidation and, allegedly, homicide.
Shortly after Kollaros’ 2018 jail launch, he was shot useless at a restaurant in Montreal. Investigators haven’t publicly recognized a suspect.
In 2023, the FBI and RCMP joined forces to pursue Wedding ceremony in a sting dubbed Operation Large Slalom.
A 12 months later, Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, whom Wedding ceremony had served time with in jail, reportedly turned on him and gave authorities key intel. The previous athlete allegedly bought wind of that, too, and positioned a $5 million bounty on his former affiliate’s head, prosecutors say.
In 2024, the DOJ unsealed an indictment charging nearly 20 defendants linked to Operation Large Slalom.
Months later, Acebedo-Garcia was fatally shot 5 occasions within the head inside a Medellín, Colombia, restaurant.
In March 2025, the previous athlete was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wished record — and a grand jury indictment later charged him in Acebedo-Garcia’s demise.
Final week, Mexican officers mentioned, Wedding ceremony surrendered on the US Embassy in Mexico Metropolis after weeks of negotiations with the FBI. Nonetheless, his lawyer has known as this report a “false narrative.”
Feds have busted 36 folks for his or her function in Wedding ceremony’s alleged drug group and seized greater than 2,300 kilograms of cocaine, 44 kilograms of methamphetamine and 44 kilograms of fentanyl, in addition to greater than $55 million of illicit belongings, in keeping with the Los Angeles Police Division.
Wedding ceremony’s former teammate mentioned it’s all mindless.
Even together with his Olympic failure, “he was the final one that wanted to go down this path.”
