LILLEY: Ryan Wedding's cartel ties expose Canada’s growing global drug-trade footprint

A Canadian has become one of the most high-profile members of a major Mexican drug cartel

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Normally, Canadians like it when one of their own succeeds on the international stage, but Ryan James Wedding isn’t winning gold medals in snowboarding — he’s allegedly moving a different type of white powder.

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This week, the American government increased its reward for information leading to his arrest from $10 million USD to $15 million.

According to U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, the Thunder Bay native and former Canadian Olympian is accused of guilty of “leading a transnational organized crime group that engaged in cocaine trafficking and murder.”

How Wedding went from snowboarder to small-time pot dealer to someone who allegedly works with — and is protected by — the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico is a fascinating story.