11-03-2025
DOJ: Fugitive Former Olympian Ryan Wedding, Subject of $10M Reward, Could Kill Witnesses
Former Olympian Ryan Wedding, a fugitive with a $10 million bounty on his head after he was charged in a federal indictment as the leader of a "sophisticated drug-trafficking organization," is capable of killing witnesses and informants who helped take down his empire, the government argued in a motion for a protective order. Wedding, 43, has been on the run from the law since his operation's consiglieri Andrew Clark was busted in a coordinated raid by Mexican Navy Seals last fall and is believed to be living under the protective arm of the ultra-violent Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. Last week the U.S. State Department announced it was offering a $10 million reward for information that could lead to his a recent court filing in California's Central District, federal prosecutors argue that Wedding operated his underworld drug trafficking conspiracy while tied to some of the world's most dangerous co-conspirators, Hezbollah, ex-KGB agents, and associates of Joaquin "el Chapo" Guzman, the notorious cartel leader who was found guilty in the U.S. on a plethora of charges related to his own murderous network. Guzman famously used 'sicarios,' or hit men was found guilty in a Brooklyn federal courtroom to what prosecutors called "hundreds of acts of violence in Mexico to enforce Sinaloa's control of territories and to eliminate those who posed a threat to the Sinaloa Cartel."Like Guzman, California prosecutors say, the one-time snowboarder for Team Canada and his buddy Clark also used hitmen to eliminate his competition in the drug trade and to wipe out anyone who crossed him, according to a motion for a protective order to protect the identities of anyone who worked with the government to take down "Operation Giant Shalom," the codename the Drug Enforcement Agent gave to the case that targeted Wedding and more than a dozen of his criminal compatriots.
This is a complex case involving a sophisticated drug-trafficking organization, whose leaders have shown a callous disregard for human hitmen to execute perceived rivals or enemies," prosecutors argued in a motion for a protective order. Wedding and Clark, prosecutors say, are charged with four murders and one attempted murder between them. And while "Wedding is at large, presumably with the same access to encrypted means of communication and network of hitmen that enabled the charged murders," it is crucial to ensure the safety of cooperators by protecting their identities, prosecutors court agreed with prosecutors and issued an order that lays out a litany of rules designed to make sure Wedding and his codefendants do not gain access to "CI" or Confidential Informant, materials. "Each defendant's defense counsel shall ensure that the defendant is never left alone with any CI Materials," the court ruled. The court agreed with prosecutors and issued an order that lays out a litany of rules designed to make sure Wedding and his codefendants do not gain access to "CI" or Confidential Informant, materials. "Each defendant's defense counsel shall ensure that the defendant is never left alone with any CI Materials," the court ruled. Wedding's transnational drug trafficking operation, law enforcement officials say, "routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada, and other locations in the United States." The drugs were often secreted in stash houses in and around Los Angeles for shipment by long haul truckers to Canada.
