A former Olympic snowboarder from Canada who the F.B.I. says is one of North America’s most notorious drug smugglers was arrested on murder and drug trafficking charges, the agency announced Friday, ending a yearslong search.
The former Olympian, Ryan Wedding, 44, who was arrested in Mexico City on Thursday night, the F.B.I. said, was charged with smuggling cocaine and other narcotics into the United States and Canada. Among the accusations he faces from the authorities: ordering the brazen daytime assassination of a Canadian informant in Medellín, Colombia.
Mr. Wedding had been on the F.B.I.’s list of its 10 most wanted fugitives. Kash Patel, the F.B.I.’s director, said of Mr. Wedding on Friday, “Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco-trafficker in modern times.”
Mr. Patel did not say what had led to Mr. Wedding’s capture. Mexico’s security minister, Omar García Harfuch, suggested that Mr. Wedding had turned himself in.
Mr. Harfuch said in a post on social media that he and Mr. Patel had met in Mexico City, and that Mr. Patel had left the country with “a Canadian citizen who voluntarily surrendered yesterday at the U.S. Embassy.”
The F.B.I. said Mr. Wedding had collaborated with the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, where the authorities said he had been hiding. They did not provide any details about his links to the cartel.
The F.B.I. announced his arrest on a tarmac at Ontario International Airport in Ontario, Calif., and called it a product of joint operations with the Canadian and Mexican law enforcement authorities.
The arrest comes at a time when Mexico has been under intense pressure from President Trump to step up operations against groups that smuggle drugs into the United States. In the past year, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has launched an aggressive campaign against cartels, fortified policing at the border and has sent nearly 100 people accused of being criminal operatives to the United States.
Canada, too, has put more money into border security and has appointed a “fentanyl czar,” though the country is not a major player in the fentanyl trade compared with Mexico.
Mr. Wedding was indicted in October 2024 on cocaine-trafficking charges. He was later charged with murder, including the killing of Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Canadian who had been expected to testify against Mr. Wedding. The authorities said Mr. Wedding hired a hit man to kill Mr. Acebedo-Garcia in 2025 in Medellín, Colombia.
He is accused of ordering at least two other killings, both in Canada.
Thirty-six people have been arrested in the case that has sprawled across North America, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, said Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I. in Los Angeles.
Officers also seized a Mercedes-Benz valued at $15 million, a fleet of motorcycles worth $40 million and other valuables such as jewelry and artwork, said Mr. Davis. He added that Mr. Wedding would be held in custody over the weekend and appear in court on Monday morning.
Mr. Wedding was convicted in 2010 after being accused of trafficing cocaine in California, and he has been a fugitive since at least 2015, when he was sought by the federal police in Canada also on cocaine-trafficking charges.
His arrest comes two weeks before the Winter Olympics begin in Italy. He competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, finishing 24th in parallel giant slalom snowboarding.
Court documents filed by Mr. Wedding’s lawyer in an earlier drug-trafficking case painted a picture of Mr. Wedding’s middle-class upbringing. His father worked as a mechanical engineer. His mother was a nurse.
Mr. Wedding attended Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, studying business, but he did not graduate. In 2006, according to Canadian news reports, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a marijuana farm linked to him and another snowboarder.
James Wagner and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.
Vjosa Isai is a reporter for The Times based in Toronto, where she covers news from across Canada.
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