After Ryan Wedding evaded the RCMP for nearly a decade, U.S. authorities briefly learned of the alleged drug lord’s precise location earlier this year, as they kept building a case against the former Olympic snowboarder.
This revelation is contained in newly unsealed Ontario court records obtained by CBC News. The documents lay out some of the steps taken by U.S. authorities to covertly gather evidence on Wedding’s alleged transnational criminal enterprise.
A California grand jury indictment made public last week names Wedding, 43, as the leader of a $1-billion US drug trafficking network linked to violent killings in Ontario. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Wedding, a member of Team Canada at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In January, U.S. authorities knew exactly where he was, according to a statement of facts recently filed in Ontario Superior Court as Toronto police sought to arrest four of Wedding’s alleged accomplices.
CBC News has learned more details about the 10 Canadians indicted by U.S. authorities in a transnational crime ring, including how they were caught. Former Olympic snowboarder, Ryan Wedding, is allegedly at the head of the network and RCMP say they’ve been on the hunt for him for a decade.
Sometime last year, an unnamed witness who U.S. authorities said “had trafficked drugs with Wedding for more than a decade” agreed to co-operate with investigators.
In January, the witness met face-to-face with Wedding and his “second in command,” Andrew Clark, in Mexico City. The precise location of the encounter — which was directed by U.S. law enforcement — is not disclosed in the documents.
Hard to apprehend
For the witness, the meeting carried risks. A conversation with Clark — also Canadian, and nicknamed “The Dictator” — was even recorded.
U.S. authorities say both Wedding and Clark have been living in Mexico, under the protection of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. Clark was reportedly arrested earlier this month at a restaurant in the Guadalajara area in a dramatic daytime operation involving the Mexican Navy.
Wedding, who goes by aliases such as “Boss” and “Public Enemy,” has been notoriously harder to apprehend.
The former athlete was sentenced to a U.S. prison term in 2010 after he was convicted in California on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
But “upon his release,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said last week, Wedding “went back to drug trafficking and, in fact, built this prolific and ruthless organization.”
The RCMP confirmed to CBC that they’ve been hunting Wedding since “approximately” 2015. That year, media reports said Wedding was among 15 people charged in the RCMP’s Operation Harrington, which sought to crack down on cocaine imports into Canada.
“I certainly hope that Mr. Wedding’s world is a little smaller now,” said Liam Price, the RCMP’s director general of international special services, said in an interview.
Although he said the Mounties and their partners will be “making every effort to track him down as soon as possible,” Price added that “I wouldn’t want to put a date on it.”
Born in Thunder Bay, Ont., Wedding later lived in Coquitlam, B.C., and Montreal.
The U.S. indictment unsealed last week shows he’s facing eight felony charges, including drug-trafficking offences and murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise.
U.S. and Canadian authorities allege Wedding and Clark orchestrated a brazen shooting last November that killed an Indian couple in Caledon, northwest of Toronto. Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, both 57, were mistakenly targeted in what investigators described as retribution over a stolen cocaine shipment.
Court docs detail grisly Niagara murder
How Clark — a Toronto man who as recently as 2020 described his occupation as elevator mechanic — rose through the ranks to become the alleged lieutenant of a convicted international drug trafficker is not clear.
He was featured in a Toronto Life magazine article in April 2020, highlighting how landlords were dealing with the first weeks of the pandemic. Clark said he and his wife had seven tenants in six properties, and that the couple was offering discounted rent for those impacted by COVID-19.
“I wanted to show our tenants that I care about them, not just about them paying me,” he said in an email seen by CBC. “We are lucky I have a good job and we are very frugal.”
The Ontario court documents unsealed this week paint a much darker picture. U.S. authorities allege Clark used an encrypted messaging app to send a hit list to a Toronto-based contract killer nicknamed “Mr. Perfect.”
“Drive over niagra blow this guys top off,” Clark is reported to have written on March 18, 2024, about the first target. He allegedly offered the gunman $100,000, plus “expenses,” for the killing.
“Driveway job,” Clark wrote, according to court records.
Two weeks later, 29-year-old Randy Fader, identified in court documents as a reputed international drug trafficker, was shot in his Niagara Falls, Ont., driveway. He later died in hospital.