Ten people, authorities say are connected to a Mexican drug cartel, have been arrested, but a Thunder Bay man considered the group’s leader remains at large.
44-year-old Ryan Wedding is sought by police on both sides of the border.
He is on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list and is also known to go by the names Giant, Public Enemy and Giant.
The Federal Bureau also increased its reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest to $15 million.
Authorities have been monitoring the cartel for nearly two years.
They allege the cartel of moving large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine from Central and South America, through the U.S. into Canada.
Wedding and another Canadian citizen have also been connected to murders in Ontario and California.
“Ryan Wedding controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in this world and works closely with the Sinaloa Cartel,” states U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a release.
“We will not rest until his name is taken off the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List, and his narco-trafficking organization lies dismantled.”
A U.S. Federal Grand Jury this week formally charged the former Olympic snowboarder, along with a Canadian lawyer, among others, in connection with the murder of a federal witness earlier this year in Colombia.
The FBI says Wedding issued orders to murder various individuals, including an order to kill the victim, who was a witness to a 2024 federal narcotics case.
They say Wedding placed a bounty on the victim and enlisted the services of others to locate and kill the victim, who was shot in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025.
Wedding was indicted last year on several drug-trafficking charges and running a criminal enterprise.
Seven of these individuals arrested this week were nabbed by police in Canada and are pending extradition to the U.S.
Three are Ontario residents, with two from Alberta and two from Montreal.
Others arrested are residents of Colombia and Florida.
All were indicted on charges of drug trafficking, murder, conspiracy and continuing a criminal enterprise.
