November 19, 2025
RED FM News Desk
Seven Canadians have been arrested for extradition to the United States in connection with a drug trafficking probe involving Ryan Wedding, a former Team Canada Olympian turned fugitive.
“Our work is not done. Fugitive Ryan Wedding remains one of the top threats to Canadian public safety,” said RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme at the U.S. Justice Department in Washington on Wednesday.
Duheme joined U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other American officials to announce the arrests of 10 people, including the seven in Canada, and ongoing efforts to take Wedding into custody through what the U.S. government is calling “Operation Giant Slalom.”
Wedding is on the FBI’s most wanted list and U.S. indictments for his arrest allege he maintains through violence and murder a criminal enterprise that brings bulk amounts of cocaine into the United States and Canada.
Wedding is believed to be hiding in Mexico. The U.S. State Department has increased the reward for information leading to his arrest to US$15 million.
Wedding, originally from Thunder Bay, Ont., competed for Canada as a snowboarder in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Canadian and American law enforcement allege that in the years that followed the Salt Lake City games, he became deeply involved in drug trafficking.
He was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010. U.S. authorities have alleged that after Wedding’s release from prison, he resumed drug trafficking under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
U.S. court documents said Wedding’s drug trafficking enterprise brought cocaine from Colombia into Mexico, then used semitrailers to distribute the drug in the United States and Canada.
Bondi accused Wedding of being the largest cocaine trafficker in Canada and alleged he spread drugs throughout the U.S., harming families and communities.
“This guy is responsible for a tremendous amount of that horror,” Bondi said.
A newly unsealed U.S. indictment connects Wedding to the January 2025 murder of a federal witness in a separate criminal case.
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