Heavy rain flocked through the streets of Washington when the experienced detective Frank Callahan entered the FBI offices. On his desk, he was waiting for him, which bore a name that sent a shaking frost into the spine: Ryan Wedding.
This name was two decades ago – who would have believed it? Today? The same name was listed among the ten most tailed criminals in the world as the tables turn.
4 Show gallery
Ryan wedding
((Photo: Tony Marshall/Empics about Getty Images)))
Callahan opened the file and unveiled blurred photos, encrypted news and cards, which were marked with red arrows across borders, ports and weakly lit warehouses. The man, who once sneaked slopes, had become a calculating criminal mastermind. The snow had been replaced by dark alleys, and his dreams no longer revolved around medals, but about drugs and death. But the question that Callahan followed the most was simple: how had a venerated athlete transformed into a ruthless drug lord like wedding?
The Bizarre History of Wedding made headlines at the weekend after the authorities in the USA, Canada and Mexico announced an unprecedented reward of 10 million US dollars for information that led to his capture, according to an FBI declaration.
“The wedding went from the competition on the Olympic slopes to floods of the streets of the USA and Canada with cocaine,” said officials. “The murders attributed to him make him an extremely dangerous man.”
How did it all? The wedding was opened in 1981 in Thunder Bay, Canada, in Coquitlam, British Columbia. He trained as a professional snowboarder and was once considered one of Canada's brightest hopes at the 2002 Winter Olympics, where he started in slalom and took 24th place.
“One of the most promising winter sports enthusiasts in Canada,” wrote Canadian media about him at the beginning of Millennium.
4 Show gallery
As you might suspect, his sports career didn't take long. About a year after the Olympic Games, he began to get involved with the criminal underworld.
According to reports in the sun in Vancouver, the wedding gradually entered drug trafficking and ultimately became one of the most powerful anti -cartel leaders in North America. “Don Corleone, the Canadian version,” joked local media – half in joke, half frustrated.
In reality, this was not far from the truth. The wedding became a high-ranking figure in the notorious Sinaloa cartel. How high? A short internet search would tell you everything you need to know.
The Sinaloa cartel was founded by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo at the end of the 1980s and was led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán (yes, the same from the Netflix series). Guzmán escaped from Mexican prisons twice before being captured in 2016. The cartel is one of the most established and long -standing drug trade organizations.
Named after the northwestern Mexican state in which it was founded, the cartel provided a significant part of the fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuanas, which was sold on American roads.
The wedding itself remains on the run. A Canadian mafia version of Al Capone. The authorities believe that he is hiding in Mexico, Canada, Colombia or other parts of Latin America and moving between safe houses every few days.
The cartel controls drug trafficking in Arizona and California and has sales centers in several US cities. It was also associated with fentanyl production facilities in Mexico. According to reports, the cartel checked an estimated 40–60% of Mexican drug trade in the early 2010s and achieved up to 3 billion US dollars every year.
An American indictment was published last year that the cartel had washed around 900,000 US dollars between August 2022 and February 2023 in Bitcoin. The cartel was also a main driver of the ongoing violence in Mexico, which has claimed tens of thousands of human life.
And the wedding has connections to none other than the Hisbollah. Before his first arrest of the drug trade, the wedding reported that a “cultural” money laundering network of an Iranian-Canadian suspect used to transfer $ 100,000 for a deal. An FBI examination later showed that his drug smuggling routes Margarita Island in Venezuela, a well-known training center for the Hisbollah, who supported Iran, belonged.
4 Show gallery
((Photo: Christina House / Los Angeles Times about Getty Images)))
Last year Carrie Thompson warned the head of the secret services to the US drug authority (DEA), Carrie Thompson, the congress of the “clear connection between drug trafficking and the financing of terrorist organizations and enemy state actors, including the Iranian regime”.
The FBI also found that Iranian crime networks in one person in which the murdered employee of Wayne Meshkati was involved in the wedding was involved in large-scale cartel operations.
At the age of 29, the wedding had already been convicted of drug trafficking and served time in a prison in Texas. On February 14, 2011 – while he was still imprisoned – he said to a businesswoman of the British Columbia of Iranian descent. Her name later appeared in a process in Vancouver with violent kidnapping and extortion.
Their identity remains classified by the FBI, but after a short time the two were divorced.
In a rare interview with the Canadian media, the ex-wife of the wedding claimed that he had told her that he was only convicted because he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”. She said they hadn't spoken for years and had married again since then. “I don't want to be associated with these people,” she said. Her name was not published because she was never charged for crime. However, it was mentioned in at least two police investigations in Canada in connection with drug trafficking and kidnapping – in which she denied.
4 Show gallery
So to believe in whom? A difficult question. The deputy director of FBI, Akil Davis from the Los Angeles field, described the wedding as “a dangerous man who has shown a ruthless willingness to kill to protect his criminal empire”.
He added that placing the wedding on the most searched list of the FBI ensures that “every possible resource is used to put it in court.”
The Canadian authorities have the same commitment. Liam Price, head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), said: “He remains one of the greatest threats to organized crime in Canada. We work closely with ourselves and Mexican authorities to ensure that he does justice to it. “
Matthew Allen, a special agent of the DEA, noticed: “This is a man who has accumulated wealth at the expense of countless life. His “rich” has fueled violence, addiction and death in several countries. “
The US lawyer Joseph McNally added: “We ask everyone with information to report. The recording of a wedding would be a significant victory for public security and international law enforcement. “
