Olympian Turned Drug Kingpin Ryan Wedding Accused Of Ordering Murder Of Witness

Ryan Wedding is facing new charges in the U.S. after the Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned transnational drug kingpin allegedly ordered the killing of a federal witness in Colombia, Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Wedding, 44, competed for America’s neighbors up north in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, before allegedly turning to a different type of “snow,” becoming Canada’s largest cocaine dealer (moving over 130k lbs. a year) and controlling “one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in the world,” according to the AG.

In a news conference in D.C. on Wednesday, Bondi, flanked by Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other top officials, outlined new charges against the retired athlete, and the accusations are wild.

Bondi claims that after Wedding, who is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, was indicted by the U.S. government for murder, drugs, and other charges in late 2024, he put a bounty on the head of a witness who was set to testify against him in his case.

On January 31, 2025, the witness was shot dead.

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

“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. His organization is responsible for importing approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles via semi-trucks from Mexico.”

The drugs are then said to have been distributed into U.S. cities and Canada.

Bondi says, in the course of their investigation, more than 35 people have been indicted, over 2,000 kilos of coke and weapons seized, and over $3 million in crypto and over $13 million in “physical assets” recovered.

In addition to an array of charges he was already facing, Wedding, a fugitive who is said to be closely protected by the cartel, will now have to contend with charges for murder, witness intimidation, money laundering, and drug trafficking.