People might know Ryan James Wedding as a former Olympic snowboarder. In 2002, he represented his home country, Canada, in the Winter Olympics. He placed 24th in the Parallel Giant Slalom event. Shortly after, Wedding quit competitive snowboarding, and it was reported by CBC, that he moved to Vancouver to study at Simon Fraser University. He dropped out in two years.
While living in Vancouver, Wedding allegedly started mass-producing cannabis at a rural property, known as the company Eighteen Carrot Farms.
Canadian police received a tip and were able to bust Eighteen Carrot Farms in 2006. Wedding was not on-site and there was not enough evidence to link him to the property, leading to no charges being made.
Wedding was arrested in the U.S. in 2008. He attempted to buy 54 pounds of cocaine to smuggle back to Canada. In court, he was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and spent two years in a U.S. prison.
On April 21, 2015, Wedding was once again a target for Canadian police as he was the target of “Operation Harrington.” It is alleged that Wedding was working to import $750 million worth of cocaine from Mexico to Canada. By the time police descended on Wedding’s enterprise, he was gone and has been on the run ever since.
It is believed he ran and lived in Mexico. He was spotted in Mexico at a coffee shop in 2024 under the name James Conrad King. The FBI did not arrest Wedding due to jurisdictional issues.
“Any arrest in Mexico would have to be carried out by Mexican authorities,” said retired FBI special agent Kenneth Gray on CBC.
In March 2025, Wedding was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The United States Department of State Narcotics is offering $15 million leading to the arrest of Wedding. He is considered armed and dangerous.
“Wedding 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, and for orchestrating multiple murders,” according to the FBI.
If Wedding is not caught soon, he will be on the FBI’s most wanted list for one year. The longer a person is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, the less likely they are to be caught. This is not always true, but each chance of being caught decreases significantly when the person has been on the run for so long.