The FBI says tips are coming in about the whereabouts of fugitive Canadian ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding

More than three weeks after the FBI first offered a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of Ryan Wedding, investigators say tips have come in. But the hunt continues for the former Team Canada Olympic snowboarder, accused of leading a murderous, transnational drug trade.

“The FBI has and continues to receive information related to Ryan Wedding’s whereabouts,” FBI spokesperson Rukelt Dalberis told CBC News in an email. “Tip received at this time has not yet led to an arrest.”

Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, faces eight felony charges in California and is accused of ordering three murders in the Toronto area. According to a U.S. federal indictment unsealed last month, the 43-year-old ran a $1 billion criminal enterprise in the U.S. that imported about 60 tons of Colombian cocaine a year, through Mexico and California, then to other parts of the U.S. and Canada.

US court records obtained by the CBC show that a 13th member of his alleged crime ring was recently arrested and arraigned in Los Angeles on drug and firearms charges. Four other employees, including an alleged hitman known as “Mr. Perfect,” are scheduled to appear in a Toronto courtroom this week as the United States seeks their extradition.

Of the 16 co-accused (including 10 Canadians) named in the indictment, only Wedding and two others are at large.

The manhunt faces several obstacles. A US federal prosecutor said Wedding could be hiding in Mexico or anywhere in Latin America and that he is being protected by the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

What’s more, the CBC has learned that Wedding’s most recent photograph — distributed last month by the FBI and broadcast worldwide — was actually taken 11 years ago for a Canadian driver’s license. In it, the six-foot-three wedding is seen with long, thin brown hair and a beard. But the timing raises the prospect that he may have changed his appearance since then.

Kenneth Gray, a former FBI special agent, said in Wedding’s case, that may not be necessary.

“If he’s in an area where he’s cooperated with local law enforcement,” Gray said in an interview, “he can live off the money he has.”

The CBC previously reported that Wedding was seen in Mexico City as recently as January, when a longtime associate-turned-FBI collaborator met with him and his second-in-command (and fellow Canadian), Andrew Clark.

Clark, a former Toronto landlord, was arrested a month ago near an upscale shopping mall in Mexico’s Guadalajara area in a dramatic operation involving heavily armed troops. As a measure of the secrecy surrounding the arrest, local police later told the CBC that they “did not handle” the operation and that it had been directed by authorities from the Mexican capital, some 500 kilometers away.

According to US authorities, Wedding and Clark orchestrated an “execution-style” killing in November 2023 of an Indian couple, Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, in Caledon, Ont. Their 28-year-old daughter Jaspreet was shot 13 times but survived.

“These murders were truly the definition of evil,” Martin Estrada, a Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney leading Wedding’s prosecution in California, told the CBC, adding that the family was “completely innocent.” He said the Sidhus were mistakenly targeted by a stolen drug shipment that had passed through Southern California.

Investigators are also linking two other fatal shootings in nearby Brampton and Niagara Falls, Ont. to the same organization. Ontario Provincial Police said they are still investigating whether multiple attacks may be connected.

On the run since 2015

At the 2002 Olympics, Wedding, then a promising young snowboarder based in Coquitlam, BC, placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom event. Within four years, there were hints of his involvement in Canada’s criminal underworld.

According to his official Olympics profileThunder Bay, Ont.-born Wedding was named in a 2006 search warrant targeting a large marijuana farm in Maple Ridge, B.C.

He was not charged at the time, but was locked up two years later.

After flying to Los Angeles in June 2008, Wedding was arrested along with two other employees from BC for conspiring to buy 24 kg of cocaine on behalf of a Vancouver-based criminal network.

During the trial, the jury heard about Wedding’s involvement in sending money across the border to secure the drug shipment. In a recording made by an FBI informant, Wedding asked, “Did you expect me to put the money in my f–king suitcase?”

He was sentenced to four years in prison. But beforehand, court records reviewed by the CBC show he pleaded with a San Diego judge to spare him a lengthy sentence.

“As an athlete, I was always taught that there is no second chance, and I’m here asking for exactly that,” Wedding said.

“In the last 24 months that I’ve been in custody, I’ve had the opportunity to see first-hand what drugs do to people, and frankly, I’m ashamed that I became part of the problem.”

After his release, he moved to Montreal. And it wasn’t long before investigators claimed he was at it again.

In April 2015, in the midst of a large-scale operation targeting cocaine imports into Canada, the RCMP laid five charges against Wedding and issued an arrest warrant. They’ve been looking for him ever since.