ONTARIO, Calif. (AP) — Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who was among the FBI’s top fugitives and faces charges related to multinational drug trafficking and the killing of a federal witness, has been arrested in Mexico, top Justice Department officials said Friday.
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Wedding, 44, is accused of running a drug trafficking operation, and officials say he orchestrated several killings to further the drug crimes. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, and authorities had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Wedding’s arrest in social media posts. Patel said Wedding was being transported to the U.S. after being apprehended Thursday night in Mexico, where U.S. authorities believe the former Olympian been hiding for more than a decade.
“This is a huge day for a safer North America, and the world,” Patel wrote on the social platform X, “and a message that those who break our laws and harm our citizens will be brought to justice.”
At a news conference in California on Friday morning, Patel said Wedding’s arrest was the result of international cooperation and praised Mexico’s government and “global partnerships” for their roles in the operation.
“When you go after a guy like Ryan Wedding, it takes a united front, and that’s what you’re seeing here,” he said, describing him a “modern day El Chapo” who “thought he could evade justice.
Patel held meetings in Mexico on Thursday and left Friday with two detainees, Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch wrote on X. He said the two detainees were a Canadian citizen who turned himself in at the U.S. embassy, as well as someone else who was among the FBI’s most-wanted and had been detained by Mexican authorities.
A member of Mexico’s Security Cabinet, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told The Associated Press that Wedding was the Canadian citizen who turned himself in.
Wedding competed for his home country in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Olympic records show he participated in a single men’s snowboarding event, parallel giant slalom, finishing 24th.
Wedding was charged in 2024 with running a drug ring that used semitrucks to move cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada. Authorities said his aliases included “El Jefe,” “Public Enemy” and “James Conrad Kin.”
In November, Bondi announced that he had also been indicted on charges of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the U.S.
Authorities said Wedding and co-conspirators used a Canadian website called “The Dirty News” to post a photograph of the witness so he could be identified and killed. The witness was then followed to a restaurant in Medellín in January and shot in the head.
Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Wedding was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010, federal records show. Federal prosecutors in 2024 said they believed Wedding, after his release from prison, had resumed drug trafficking under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
Associated Press journalist Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this story.
