In 2002, Ryan James Wedding was a clean-cut white boy headed for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. With his chiseled, 240-pound, six-foot-three frame, piercing blue eyes, and beguiling smile, the Canadian National Snowboard Team member cut the figure of a champion Olympian destined for Wheaties box fame. Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to wealthy and accomplished parents, Wedding’s childhood was likewise charmed. His father, Rene, was a sought-after engineer proficient in several languages; his mother, Karen, was a nurse. Wedding, along with his two sisters, grew up speaking French and English. The natural-born athlete had always leaned into adventure sports–motocross, dirt biking, rugby. But it was snowboarding in which Wedding excelled. His grandparents owned Thunder Bay’s Mount Baldy ski resort, and it was here that Wedding learned to shred, embarking on a career path as a competitive snowboarder, a sport that landed him a spot on Canada’s 1995 Olympic team and earned Wedding the formidable nickname, “The Giant.”
The giant is no more, and Wedding, now 43 years old, has long since careened down a precarious slope riddled with corruption, murder, and cocaine trafficking.
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Per the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wedding is currently on the lam believed to be hiding out in Mexico, an accused murderer with ties to myriad transnational criminal organizations, his mustachioed mugshot among the rogue’s gallery of fugitives that make up the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Wedding’s FBI Most Wanted Poster features two photos of Wedding, a man the feds assert is capable of barbaric bloodshed linked to an attendant avalanche of drug crimes. In one, the sparkle in Wedding’s eyes is long dulled, his hair a long, stringy mess, his beard untidy and straggly. Wedding’s moniker of late, one bestowed upon him by compatriots in the notoriously brutal Sinaloa Cartel: “Public Enemy.” In the second, he looks more like the athlete he once was, his hulking, chiseled frame covered in a t-shirt and sweater, hair cut high-and-tight, as he leans over a cell phone at an outdoor table in the photo that was taken by law enforcement, sources say, in Mexico City. The FBI warns that he should be considered armed and dangerous.
How Wedding became what Martin Estrada, the U.S. Attorney for California’s Central District, called “an Olympic-athlete-turned-drug lord” comprises a blood-soaked trail that spans decades and stretches across several continents. Wedding, per a Los Angeles review of court records, is connected to some of the most dangerous criminals in the world: dirty ex-Russian KGB agents, Iranian encryption experts, Hezbollah-connected narco-terrorists, and the infamously violent Sinaloa Cartel. According to prosecutors, for 13 years, Wedding ran a $1 billion drug empire along with a motley coterie of criminal compatriots. Among them: Nahim Jorge Bonilla, a music executive whose preferred nickname was “The One” and whom investigators believe was negotiating drug deals as the owner of the Miami Beach hotspot Mandrake; an Indian trucking magnate; a Toronto hitman; Russian mobsters; and Wedding’s childhood buddy Andrew Clark, the Olympian’s second-in-command known by his alias “The Dictator.”
Once an Olympian snowboarder, Ryan Wedding’s dramatic transformation reflects his descent into the criminal underworld as a fugitive drug trafficker wanted by the FBI.Courtesy of Federal Bureau of Investigation
But Wedding, called “El Jefe” by his criminal underlings, was undeniably the boss. According to Estrada, Wedding moved 60 tons of cocaine a year from the humid climes of South and Central America to the iciest reaches of Canada as the “principal administrator, organizer, and leader of the criminal enterprise.” But Los Angeles was Wedding’s hub, the proverbial ground zero for his operation’s sophisticated “transportation network” that stockpiled drugs in warehouses across the city before they were smuggled into Canada by long-haul truckers. His operation got even more sophisticated in 2002, the same year he was cut from his country’s Olympic team. It was around this time that, per Matthew Allen, the Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s L.A. field division, Wedding pivoted from “navigating slopes” to “contouring a life of incessant crimes.” The former nice guy athlete was now mired in an underworld that was “unremitting, callous and greed driven.”
For one, if anyone got in Wedding’s way, prosecutors say, he eliminated them using contract killers that Clark, court records show, kept on speed dial. One such victim was Mohammed Zafar, 39, a resident of Brampton, located about an hour outside Toronto, whose May 18, 2024, murder was ordered in retaliation for a drug debt. Months earlier, in December 2023, Wedding and Clark, according to a federal indictment, paid for the execution-style murders of a truck driver whose haul went missing, only the killer shot up the wrong targets, a married Indian couple in their 50s Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidnu, who were visiting their daughter in Caledon, Ontario. The couple had rented a house once belonging to the drug courier, who was also Indian, who fled L.A. with a large shipment of drugs that never made it to their destination. In what officials called “a case of mistaken identity,” the assassin erroneously assumed he had found his target and opened fire. During said execution, the hired hitman also shot the couple’s daughter, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, 13 times. She miraculously survived, recalling her harrowing experience with CBC News: “I heard my mother’s last screams. After that, there was complete silence. Only the noises of gunshots.”
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And those are just some of the victims. Prosecutors have connected two additional assassinations to Wedding and Clark’s network, which occurred while Wedding was a wanted man in Canada.
Investigators have been on Wedding’s tail since 2015 when the disgraced Olympiad’s name was listed in court documents filed in Montreal as part of a drug case spearheaded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Wedding was charged with two counts of conspiracy to import cocaine, two counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine, and one count of trafficking cocaine. Wedding fled Canada and, in turn, the U.S. Department of Justice authorities dubbed the case to bring the narcotics trafficker to justice “Operation Giant Slalom,” a nod to the Olympic race in which Wedding competed in Salt Lake City.
The DEA seizes hundreds of kilos of cocaine during a coordinated effort to dismantle a billion-dollar drug trafficking network connected to Operation Giant Slalom.Courtesy of the Drug Enforcement Administration
In October, the feds struck hard at Wedding’s network, rounding up his most powerful lieutenants in a series of raids in the United States, Colombia, and Mexico. Heavily armed FBI Agents swarmed Bonilla’s $5 million Miami mansion, once owned by DJ Khaled, demanding the music mogul-cum-restaurateur surrender an implicating loudspeaker. In the Pacific-bordering state of Jalisco, Clark was tackled in a dramatic maneuver coordinated by Mexico’s Navy Seals. In total, authorities seized roughly a ton of cocaine, firearms, and dozens of rounds of ammunition, more than $255,000 in cold hard cash, and over $3.2 million in cryptocurrency.
But Wedding has mastered the art of evading law enforcement. With the help of the Sinaloa cartel, the ruthless ringleader remains at large with a $50,000 bounty on his head and a slew of aliases at his disposal, living in the lap of luxury at the expense of those whose lives he destroyed.
Authorities dismantle the $1 billion cocaine empire led by former Olympian Ryan Wedding, with multiple arrests across the U.S., Mexico, and Colombia during Operation Giant Slalom.Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice
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Wedding’s dizzying spree of crime began in June 2008 when he flew to LAX with an Iranian money launderer named Hassan Sharari and Michael Krapchan, a reputed Russian mobster with plans to buy 24 kilos of cocaine from former KGB agent Yuri Trofinov. But nothing on that trip for the ex-Olympian would go as planned.
In a recorded phone call, Trofimov assured Krapchan, the owner of a Vancouver radio station and Vice President of the Vancouver Russian Jews Association, that the cocaine was “100% Colombian” and available for pickup in Los Angeles.
Krapchan was afraid of Trofimov, and for good reason: Trofimov was a former member of the KGB, the now-defunct phalanx of secret police whose tactics were so terrifying most Russians refused to utter the acronym aloud. Rather, its agents were referred to by the euphemism “high-class professionals.” Krapchan’s attorney would later describe Trofimov in a court filing as “a big player” in the drug trade, “a Godfather” in a ring of former KGB agents and Russian policemen involved in transnational drug dealing and money laundering activities.
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Krapchan owed Trofimov money that was connected to a real estate deal gone wrong. If the debt wasn’t paid, the “high-class professional” warned that he would “take care of [Krapchan] the Russian way.”
The cocaine deal would provide Krapchan a way out. Trofimov would sell him 24 kilos of that “Colombian” coke, which, in turn, Krapchan could upsell and wipe out his remaining debt. Krapchan accepted the deal, noting that he would be traveling to L.A. with “a Canadian athlete” (Wedding) and “an Iranian” (Sharari). When Wedding and Sharari touched down at LAX on June 10, 2008, Trofinov was waiting at the airport. He immediately demanded to see the money. But Wedding said they didn’t have it. “Obviously, I didn’t put it in my fucking suitcase,” he told Trofinov. The terms had changed, he explained. He and Sharai would buy one kilo, he said, “have a look at it, and grab the rest of them later.”
Authorities seize hundreds of kilos of cocaine in a major operation targeting an international drug trafficking ring, showcasing their haul at the LAPD Air Support Division.Courtesy of the Los Angeles Police Department
Trofinov erupted into a fiery rage. No one knew it then, but Yuri was wired up, working undercover for the FBI. The feds were positioned nearby with a plan to swoop in and grab the trio right there. Only Wedding’s “paper” to pay for the drugs had been sent to L.A. using the ancient Iranian money transferring system known as hawala, which kept transactions such as this one from the prying eyes of banking authorities and regulatory agencies so that there was no arrestable transaction. They needed a day or two to access the cash.
The men went their separate ways. Wedding checked into a room at the Comfort Inn in Woodland Hills. Three days later, Wedding traveled to San Diego where, entering a room with his cohorts, he was surveilled by federal agents. Krapchan emerged with a bag of cash and drove to a separate location to meet Trofinov with $17,000 in tow. He got the drugs and shared the good news in a call to Wedding.
With that, the FBI moved in. Krapchan was arrested at the drug buy, while Wedding and Sharari were arrested at the dumpy San Diego hotel as federal agents got a warrant to search their hotel rooms searched. Stashed in a dresser in Wedding’s room was $100,000. A federal indictment was issued on federal trafficking charges, which carried a ten-year prison sentence. Krapchan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months. The Iranian flipped, testifying against Wedding who was found guilty at trial.
Ryan James Wedding, a former Olympian, is wanted by the FBI for leading a transnational drug trafficking operation tied to murder and narcotics crimes, with a $50,000 reward for information leading to his capture.Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
When it came time for his sentencing in May 2010, Wedding turned on the charm for the judge who would determine his fate, apologizing for “the stupid and irresponsible decisions” that led to him “coming down to San Diego to buy drugs.” Worse, he added, “I allowed myself to be lured by the idea of easy money, and the sad thing is I really didn’t need money that bad. As an athlete, I was always taught that there are no second chances, and, well, I’m here asking for exactly that.”
The judge was moved, so much so that she told Wedding he had swayed her into imposing a lighter sentence than the one she had in mind. Wedding was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison. With time served after his arrest, he was released months later in 2011. The assistant United States Attorney in San Diego, Orlando Gutierrez, who prosecuted the case, didn’t put up a fight. After all, he told the judge, the “Olympian” was “not a kingpin” but another hapless “person who was trying to break into the drug trade, and it didn’t work out.”
Wedding might have been considered an amateur back then, but upon his release, he put the connections he made while locked up to immediate use. It was this second chance, notes Estrada, that created the framework for Wedding to build his “prolific and ruthless organization.”
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One is responsible for at least four murders.
The FBI urges anyone with information about Wedding’s whereabouts to contact the Bureau’s Los Angeles field office. His compatriots remain in federal holding cells as prosecutors continue to pursue their case largely in secret, with most of the filings in the case kept under court-ordered seal away from public view.
