A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder has been named in the United States as the boss of a billion-dollar transnational drug trafficking organization accused of moving massive amounts of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and California into Canada while protecting the operation with multiple unsolved murders, including several in Canada.

Ryan James Wedding, 43, who was born in Thunder Bay, Ont., and moved to Coquitlam, B.C., competed in the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002, but his international fame now comes from being named as the boss of the sprawling organization — and as a fugitive from justice — by U.S. officials who placed a US$50,000 bounty on his head.