Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin and FBI “Most Wanted” fugitive, was arrested in Mexico after eluding capture for more than a decade, U.S. authorities announced Friday.
Officials have likened the 44-year-old Canadian, who competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City games, to a “modern-day iteration” of notorious drug smugglers Pablo Escobar and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and have accused him of playing a role in multiple killings. The FBI had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his apprehension and conviction.
“He went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” FBI Director Kash Patel said at a news conference in California announcing Wedding’s arrest. “He thought he could evade justice.”
Wedding will be held in custody through the weekend before making a first court appearance in Los Angeles on Monday, officials said.
Patel said he flew to Mexico on Wednesday to oversee the operation that led to Wedding’s apprehension a day later in Mexico City. He declined to answer questions about the details of that operation, but credited Mexican authorities for their cooperation.
Wedding — who allegedly operated under aliases including “El Jefe,” “Giant” and “Public Enemy” — was charged in federal court in Los Angeles in 2024 with running a billion-dollar enterprise described as “the largest supplier of cocaine to Canada.”
Prosecutors said he worked with Mexican drug cartels to move multiton shipments of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, then on to Canada and various American states. Wedding has also been accused of recruiting assassins he put on his payroll to kill “perceived rivals, disfavored people, and supposed cooperators.”
Authorities filed additional charges against Wedding last year, alleging he played a role in ordering the killing of a witness set to testify against him. According to court filings, Deepak Balwant Paradkar, an Ontario-based attorney who had been representing Wedding, told the former Olympian that if the witness — Jonathan Acebedo Garcia — were killed the charges filed against him in Los Angeles would have to be dismissed.
Prosecutors said Wedding then placed a bounty of up to $5 million on Acebedo, leading a group of people to track down the man at a cafe in Medellín, Colombia, where he was shot five times in the head. Wedding allegedly rewarded one of those involved in the slaying with a bejeweled necklace.
Prosecutors have also accused Wedding of ordering the killing of a drug shipment driver who he suspected of stealing cocaine in 2023. In what authorities described as a case of mistaken identity, one or more assassins broke into an Ontario rental property, shot and killed a married couple who were there visiting from India and seriously injured their daughter in the belief that the family was related to the driver.
Since 2024, more than 36 other alleged members of Wedding’s operation have been charged with various crimes and authorities have seized millions of dollars worth of property tied to the group, including motorcycles, artwork, jewelry and a rare Mercedes roadster that the FBI has valued as worth $13 million.
Many details of Wedding’s path from Olympian to drug trafficker remain unclear. Four years after the 2002 games, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a Vancouver-area marijuana operation they said had been run by Wedding and another snowboarder. Criminal charges against Wedding were never filed.
Two years later, Wedding was arrested in San Diego and convicted of conspiring to distribute 24 kilograms of cocaine — a case that sent him to prison for four years.
After his release, Wedding was sent to Canada, and was believed to be living near Montreal. He was charged in 2015 in that country with conspiring to smuggle cocaine, but he vanished before authorities could arrest him.
Authorities believe Wedding spent much of the past decade living in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Friday the investigation remains ongoing.
“While we’re happy about this victory,” Davis said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us to prosecute this case and continue our investigation.”
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