{"id":30023,"date":"2025-11-20T04:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30023"},"modified":"2025-11-20T04:39:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:39:00","slug":"former-olympic-snowboarder-wanted-by-us-charged-with-masterminding-murder-of-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/11\/20\/former-olympic-snowboarder-wanted-by-us-charged-with-masterminding-murder-of-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Olympic snowboarder wanted by US charged with masterminding murder of witness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Canadian former Olympic snowboarder who is wanted in the US for running a multi-national drug trafficking network is also facing charges in connection with the killing of a federal witness, the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has announced.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Wedding is accused of orchestrating the killing of the witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/united-states-4398\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>US<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in January.<\/p>\n<p>Ten other defendants have been arrested on the charges in the federal indictment, which was unsealed in California.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-image\" data-testid=\"article-image\">\n<figure class=\"sdc-article-image__figure\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-image__wrapper\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" src=\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/11\/768x432\/skynews-ryan-wedding-wanted_7086357.jpg?20251119224804\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1024px) 1024px, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/11\/384x216\/skynews-ryan-wedding-wanted_7086357.jpg?20251119224804 380w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/11\/768x432\/skynews-ryan-wedding-wanted_7086357.jpg?20251119224804 760w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/11\/1600x900\/skynews-ryan-wedding-wanted_7086357.jpg?20251119224804 1024w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/11\/2048x1152\/skynews-ryan-wedding-wanted_7086357.jpg?20251119224804 2048w\" alt=\"Ryan Wedding in a picture taken last year. Pic: FBI\/AP\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\" \/><\/div><figcaption class=\"ui-media-caption\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption\"><span class=\"ui-media-caption__caption-text\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption-text\">Ryan Wedding in a picture taken last year. (Image: FBI\/AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>US authorities are now offering up to $15m for information leading to the arrest of Wedding, who is on the FBI&#8217;s 10 Most Wanted list.<\/p>\n<p>He is believed to be living in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/mexico-6001\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Mexico<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say he is working closely with the cartel to funnel massive quantities of drugs into the US and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/canada-6330\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Canada<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whether you are a street-level drug dealer &#8230; or an international drug kingpin, we are coming for you,&#8221; Ms Bondi said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will find you and you will be accountable and held to justice for your crimes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wedding, whose aliases include El Jefe, Public Enemy and James Conrad King, was charged in 2024 with running a drug ring that moves some 60 tons of cocaine a year using long-haul lorries to bring the drugs between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada.<\/p>\n<p>The US government is also offering rewards of up to $2m for others involved in the killing.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say he and his co-conspirators used a Canadian website called The Dirty News to post a photograph of the witness so he could be identified and killed.<\/p>\n<p>The witness was then followed to a restaurant in Medellin and shot in the head in January.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wedding placed the bounty on the victim&#8217;s head, and the erroneous belief that the victim&#8217;s death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him and his international drug trafficking ring, and would further ensure that he was not extradited to the United States,&#8221; said Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was wrong.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Source: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sky-news-logo-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sky-news-logo-1.png\" alt=\"Sky News\" width=\"100\" height=\"20\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/former-olympic-snowboarder-wanted-by-us-charged-with-masterminding-murder-of-witness-13472956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A Canadian former Olympic snowboarder who is wanted in the US for running a multi-national drug trafficking network is also facing charges in connection with the killing of a federal witness, the US Attorney General, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/11\/20\/former-olympic-snowboarder-wanted-by-us-charged-with-masterminding-murder-of-witness\/\" title=\"Former Olympic snowboarder wanted by US charged with masterminding murder of witness\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,109,2,3],"tags":[177,45,2800,2512,2885,10466,10751,92,8051,11170],"class_list":{"0":"post-30023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"category-headline","9":"category-news","10":"category-usa","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-colombia","14":"tag-drug-smuggling","15":"tag-drug-trafficking","16":"tag-fbi-most-wanted","17":"tag-medellin","18":"tag-mexico","19":"tag-sinaloa-cartel","20":"tag-us-district-court-for-the-central-district-of-california","21":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30025,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30023\/revisions\/30025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}