Former Olympian Ryan Wedding ceremony charged with ordering homicide of federal witness in unsealed indictment

The U.S. Division of Justice has unsealed a federal grand jury indictment that prices former Olympian Ryan Wedding ceremony with ordering the homicide of a federal witness in January 2025.

Wedding ceremony, 44, a Canadian nationwide residing in Mexico, is the lead defendant within the newly unsealed indictment that prices him with two further counts of witness tampering and intimidation, homicide, cash laundering and drug trafficking. A number of different people have been additionally named within the indictment.

In accordance with courtroom paperwork, Wedding ceremony is accused of issuing a “multimillion-dollar bounty” on a federal witness who was concerned in a 2024 federal narcotics case towards him. Courtroom paperwork declare Wedding ceremony enlisted the providers of different defendants to allegedly find and kill the witness, recognized as Sufferer A, in Colombia. 

“The homicide of a witness in Colombia earlier this yr was a merciless, cold-blooded act that would not and didn’t go unanswered,” stated Appearing United States Lawyer Invoice Essayli at a information convention on Wednesday morning. 

Essayli additionally introduced the arrest of 10 people as a part of the federal government’s second section of a legislation enforcement motion entitled “Operation Big Slalom.”

“‘Operation Big Slalom’ is a dynamic worldwide investigation and includes devoted companions collaborating in a number of international locations with the shared objective of capturing Wedding ceremony, discovering justice for a number of homicide victims – together with a cooperating witness – and ridding communities in North America of lethal medication,” stated Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Cost of the FBI’s Los Angeles Discipline Workplace.

Wedding ceremony can be wished for crimes, together with allegedly working a transnational drug trafficking community that would typically ship lots of of kilograms of cocaine. Wedding ceremony’s community would ship the cocaine from Colombia by means of Mexico and Southern California to Canada and different elements of the U.S., federal officers stated. In March, he was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Needed Record.

Wedding ceremony competed for the Canadian nationwide group within the 2002 Salt Lake Metropolis Winter Olympic Video games earlier than he was convicted in 2010 for making an attempt to purchase cocaine from a U.S. authorities agent.

On the information convention, Lawyer Normal Pamela Bondi described Wedding ceremony because the chief of one of many “most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations on this world.” She claimed that Wedding ceremony’s alleged group is chargeable for “importing about 60 metric tons of cocaine a yr into LA through semi-trucks from Mexico.”

She stated over the course of the federal authorities’s investigation into Wedding ceremony’s alleged drug group, 35 people have been indicted, 2,000 kilos and quite a few weapons have been seized and $3.2 million in cryptocurrency has been recovered.

If convicted of prices in reference to the witness’s homicide, Wedding ceremony and the opposite defendants might face a most sentence of life in federal jail, the DOJ stated.

“Nobody, not even a former Olympian, is above the legislation,” stated Senior Bureau Official Chris Landberg of the Division of State’s Bureau of Worldwide Narcotics and Legislation Enforcement Affairs.

The U.S. Division of State’s Narcotics Rewards Program is providing a reward of as much as $15 million for info that results in the Wedding ceremony’s arrest or conviction.

Anybody with any info concerning Wedding ceremony or his associates is urged to contact the FBI through WhatsApp, Sign or Telegram (neither government-operated nor government-controlled platforms) at (424) 495-0614. Folks may contact their native FBI workplace, the closest American Embassy or Consulate, or submit a tip on-line at ideas.fbi.gov.