A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder and the biggest cocaine distributor in Canada, in response to officers, has been arrested and was positioned in US custody.
Ryan Wedding was one among FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives, with a $15 million reward for his seize, after being indicted for allegedly operating a felony enterprise, cocaine trafficking and homicide in an operation stretching throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.
Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch stated in a tweet on X that Wedding turned himself in earlier than being handed over to the FBI.
“The Director of the FBI left today for the United States, bringing with him two priority objectives: a non-American person who was arrested by Mexican authorities of the 10 most wanted by the FBI and a Canadian citizen who voluntarily surrendered yesterday at the United States Embassy,” García Harfuch stated.
FBI Director Kash Patel stated throughout a press convention Friday that Wedding was taken into custody in Mexico on Thursday night time. Officials say Wedding has been hiding in Mexico for over a decade, working for the Sinaloa Cartel and their cocaine operations — transport the drug from Columbia to the US and Canada.
Attorney General Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was answerable for greater than $1 billion a 12 months in unlawful drug proceeds. Officials had believed Wedding to be someplace in Mexico beneath the safety of the Sinaloa cartel.
“This operation is the result of tremendous cooperation and team work with the Government of Mexico,” Patel wrote in a publish on-line Friday saying the arrest. “Special thanks to our amazing partners in Mexico who facilitated this – President Sheinbaum, Secretary Harfuch, Ambassador Ron Johnson, Legat Mexico, and more.”
Competing for Team Canada, Wedding completed because the Twenty fourth-best parallel large slalom snowboarder on this planet on the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Wedding was taken to the US Friday, arriving on the Ontario International Airport in Southern California the place officers, together with Patel, gave a press convention following his arrest.
During the press convention, officers stated they’d been trying to find Wedding for over a 12 months and accused the previous snowboarder of orchestrating murders together with of presidency officers.
Officials say they seized weapons, costly automobiles, paintings and different objects as a part of the arrest. Wedding is anticipated to seem in federal court docket as quickly as Monday, Patel stated through the press convention, referring to the alleged cocaine kingpin as a “modern day Escobar.”
FBI officers say they’re nonetheless trying to find extra people concerned in Wedding’s operations.
Wedding’s arrest was first reported by NBC.
In touting the arrest of Wedding, Patel highlighted the FBI’s arrest of six of the company’s prime 10 most wished fugitives prior to now 12 months — together with the latest arrest of a man in Mexico, who was charged with murdering a girl in North Carolina in 2016.
This gained’t be the primary time Wedding faces a judge.
In June 2008, Wedding was arrested together with two different individuals and accused of conspiring to own with the intent to distribute cocaine, in response to a felony grievance.
The arrest got here after Wedding and associates traveled from Canada to San Diego, California, to purchase cocaine as a part of a drug trafficking group based mostly in Vancouver, in response to an affidavit. The operation was a sting, although, and FBI brokers arrested the trio after the deal was accomplished, the affidavit states. Investigators allegedly discovered $100,000 in money of their lodge room, the affidavit states.
His two co-defendants pleaded responsible, in response to court docket information, however Wedding took the case to trial. He was discovered responsible in November 2009, and in 2010, was sentenced to 4 years in jail, per court docket information.
At his sentencing listening to, Wedding invoked his sports activities background in chatting with the court docket, saying it was his private objective to rebuild his status.
In October 2024, nonetheless, federal prosecutors released a superseding indictment charging Wedding with operating a felony enterprise, cocaine trafficking and homicide in an operation stretching throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia. The indictment says the enterprise started round 2011, when Wedding was launched from jail.
The crimes Wedding is accused of now, although, are much more severe.
Prosecutors accuse him, together with one other man, of ordering the killings of a number of individuals. They say he directed the November 2023 murders of two members of a household in Ontario “in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment” and of ordering the homicide of one other individual in May 2024 over a drug debt.