Mexican authorities have seized a number of high-priced items, including two Olympic medals, as the search for a man dubbed "the modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar" continues.
Ryan Wedding, a former snowboarder who represented Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics, was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in March 2025.
The 44-year-old is wanted for allegedly 'running a transnational drug trafficking network that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States'.
He is also said to have orchestrated multiple murders, including the killing of a government witness in January. The FBI later put out a $15,000,000 reward for Wedding’s capture.
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“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and in his native Canada,” said Akil Davis, the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
Davis added: “The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man, and his addition to the list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, coupled with a major reward offer by the State Department, will make the public our partner so that we can catch up with him before he puts anyone else in danger.”
Last month, FBI director Kash Patel compared Wedding to two of the most infamous drug lords in recent memory.
“Make no mistake,” Patel said. “Ryan Wedding is a modern-day iteration of Escobar and Guzmán. He is responsible for engineering a narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time.”
It has been widely reported that Wedding is currently located in Mexico. A new photo was shared of “El Jefe" this month, which is believed to have been taken at a property in the North American country last summer.
Authorities in Mexico have recently carried out a series of raids on four properties and have seized dozens of items, including 62 high-end motorcycles, two vehicles, methamphetamine, marijuana, artwork and ammunition, as well as documents.
That's according to a report from CTV News, who claim two Olympic medals were also seized, although officials didn’t publicly release who they belong to as Wedding never made it to a podium in his 2002 appearance at the Winter Olympics.
Out of 32 competitors, the then 21-year-old placed in 24th, finishing ahead of future Olympic silver medalist Simon Schoch.
On Wednesday, authorities in Mexico announced that they had found two Olympic medals belonging to a former Olympian who is among the 10 most wanted fugitives in the United States.
Ken Gray, a former FBI agent and senior lecturer at the University of New Haven, has branded the recent raids as a "significant step" in locating Wedding.
"Despite the fact that they didn’t capture Ryan Wedding in these raids, this is a significant step in that it shows that Mexican authorities are taking this seriously now and that they are making efforts to locate Ryan Wedding and attack his organization," he told CTV News.
Fellow former FBI agent and federal prosecutor M. Quentin Williams also commented following the raids, saying: "It appears to me they are closing in on him and they’re closing in on his location.”
Topics: Olympics, United States
Jack Kenmare