The FBI has released an updated photograph of Ryan Wedding, as it continues its manhunt for the former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, who is allegedly the head of a transnational drug trafficking ring.
In the new photo, Wedding has short hair and appears to be looking at a cellphone while at a table in a restaurant.
It is vastly different than the previously-released photo from 2013 that which showed the 43-year-old with long hair and a full beard.
A FBI spokesperson told Global News in an email investigators believe the photo was taken sometime this year. They did not know where it was taken, and the search for Wedding remains ongoing.
In mid-October, the FBI announced it had arrested 14 people and were looking for two others, including Wedding, in connection to an international drug ring.
American officials said their investigation, dubbed Project Slalom, alleged Wedding and another Canadian, Andrew Clark, were behind several murders in Ontario, as well as on top of a drug trafficking ring which was moving millions of kilos of cocaine across the continent.
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The FBI connected the pair to the murder of a couple who were not connected to the drug trade in Caledon in November of 2023 as well as killings in Niagara in April and Peel Region in May.
About a week after the FBI made its announcement, new details emerged surrounding the homicides.
An affidavit filed by a Toronto police officer assigned to the fugitive squad says evidence collected from the cellphone of a suspected ring member shows how the group orchestrated the man’s death.
The documents kept by a Toronto court allege the ring’s second-in-command Andrew Clark would hire “hit men,” including Malik Damion Cunningham, who used the aliases Jamal Abukar and MrPerfect (sic).
The documents say the pair chatted over encrypted messaging service Threema about the target list, with Cunningham allegedly telling Clark, “Give me the easiest one first,” adding he would need a car, a fake ID, and a “place to bring the gun after.”
Clark, meanwhile, allegedly told Cunningham to “drive over niagra blow this guys top off.” (sic)
The affidavit says the conversations occurred before R.F. was shot and killed in front of his Niagara Falls home on April 1.
While Wedding and Clark, his right-hand man, were both Canadian, the pair were based out of Mexico, where the FBI believed that Wedding remained when it announced the arrests last month.
While Clark was arrested on Oct. 8 by Mexican law enforcement the manhunt remains active for Wedding, with the FBI having placed a $50,000 bounty on his head.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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