There is a $15 million reward offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. for information leading to the arrest of a Canadian drug trafficker who was once the subject of a search warrant in Maple Ridge.
Ryan James Wedding, 44, is one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives.
In an indictment unsealed on Nov. 19, charges were announced against the former snowboarder, who had represented Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is charged in the killing of a witness in a federal narcotics case against him, on Jan. 31, 2025.
Wedding is accused of placing a bounty on the victim and enlisting the services of others to locate and kill the victim, who was shot to death in a restaurant in Medellin, Columbia.
Wedding is also charged with allegedly overseeing the operations of a criminal enterprise, engaging in witness intimidation tactics, and enriching himself with the enterprise’s laundered drug proceeds.
He has been described by officials in the U.S. as being a “narco-trafficker” on par with notorious drug lords like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar.
In 2006, Wedding was named in a Maple Ridge search warrant and was investigated for allegedly growing large amounts of illicit cannabis, but was never charged, according to his biography on olympics.com, a website that provides the names, results, and biographies of all athletes who took part in the Olympics.
In May, 2010, he was convicted of attempting to buy cocaine from a US government agent in 2008, and was sentenced to four years in prison, the site also stated.
A 2024 indictment revealed Wedding was also charged with running a continuing criminal enterprise, and directing the November 20, 2023, murders of two members of a family in Caledon, Ontario, in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment that passed through Southern California. Another member of that family survived the shooting, but was left with serious injuries.
At the Nov. 19 press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., officials said there were also additional rewards being offered for information leading to the arrests of assassins who murdered the potential witness.
They said 10 defendants were arrested Tuesday, Nov. 18, in what the government agency called “Operation Giant Slalom”, and 11 in total are currently in custody in relation to the murder.
Arrests include:
• Deepak Balwant Paradkar, 62, of Thornhill, Ontario, Canada;
• Atna Ohna, 40, of Laval, Quebec, Canada;
• Gursewak Singh Bal, 31, of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada;
• Allistair Chapman, 33, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada;
• Ahmad Nabil Zitoun, 35, of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada;
• Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, 47, of Bogota, Colombia;
• Yulieth Katherine Tejada, 36, of Orlando, Florida, who is legal permanent resident from Colombia;
• Edwin Basora-Hernandez, 31, of Montreal;
• Wilson Riascos, 45, of Cali, Colombia;
• and Rolan Sokolovski, 37, of Toronto.
Paradkar is a criminal barrister who allegedly advised Wedding to murder the victim so that Wedding would avoid extradition to the United States from Mexico on the 2024 federal criminal charges against him, amongst other accusations.
Bal was the co-founder and co-operator of “The Dirty News,” a website which has since been seized by law enforcement, upon which Bal allegedly posted a photograph of the victim so the victim could be located and killed.
Basora-Hernandez, a reggaeton musician and citizen of the Dominican Republic, allegedly provided co-conspirators with the victim’s contact information for the purpose of helping Wedding and his criminal enterprise locate and murder the victim.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding’s operation was responsible for more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world,” Bondi said, adding that under Wedding’s direction his operation has trafficked 60 metric tons of cocaine per year. “He is the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.”
Officials said Wedding is believed to live in Mexico. They said the 44-year-old works with the Sinaloa Cartel there to flood U.S. and Canadian communities with cocaine from Colombia and that the cartel is protecting him.
Immigration action has since been taken against two associates of Wedding’s enterprise living in the U.S.
These include Latin pop artist Samantha Melissa Granda-Gastelu, 38, a Canadian national residing in Aventura, Florida, whose husband Nahim Jorge Bonilla, 37, has been indicted on separate murder conspiracy charges. Bonilla is in currently in federal custody, charged with drug trafficking crimes. And against Madeline Paradkar, 27, a Canadian national residing in Chicago who is an attorney and Paradkar’s daughter.
Law enforcement continues to search for Wedding, and the following three defendants:
• Rasheed Pascua Hossain, 32, of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada;
• Bianca Canastillo-Madrid, 37, of Mexico City;
• and Tommy Demorizi, 35, of Montréal, who is believed to be a fugitive in the Dominican Republic.
If convicted, Wedding – and the defendants charged in connection with the victim’s murder – would face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme praised the international cooperation between agencies on both sides of the border as a vital to staying ahead of organized crime.
“The RCMP and its international law enforcement partners work together closely, regularly sharing knowledge, technical expertise, and intelligence to enable us to collectively target the most serious organized crime groups that threaten our countries – no matter where they are operating in the world,” he said.
Wedding goes by the aliases James Conrad King, or Jesse King, and is considered armed and dangerous. He is 6’3” tall, 240 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes. He speaks both English and Spanish.
A federal arrest warrant was issued for Wedding in a U.S. district court, in California in 2024.
Anyone with information about Wedding is being asked to contact the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office at (310) 477-6565, or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate, or submit a tip online at: https://tips.fbi.gov/home.