Ryan Wedding: Olympian Turned Drug Kingpin Captured in Mexico

Capture of Ryan Wedding

• 🎯 Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder and alleged drug kingpin, has been apprehended in Mexico City.
• 📌 This capture marks the 6th top-ten most wanted fugitive apprehended by the FBI in a single year, as announced by Director Kash Patel.
• 🔍 Wedding was on the run for nearly a year, accused of leading a transnational drug trafficking enterprise and involvement in several murders.

Background and Criminal Activities

• ❄️ Before his criminal career, Wedding competed for Team Canada in the parallel giant slalom at the 2002 Olympics, finishing 24th.
• 🌿 His criminal activities began around 2006 with links to a marijuana grow operation in British Columbia.
• 💊 In 2009, he was arrested in the US for attempting to buy 24 kg of cocaine and served 4 years in prison.
• 🇲🇽 Upon release, he was again tied to drug charges before fleeing to Mexico, where he is believed to have operated under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel.

Scale of Operations and Allegations

• 💰 Wedding is alleged to have trafficked over $1 billion in cocaine, smuggling approximately 60 metric tons into the US annually via semi-trucks.
• ⚠️ In November 2025, new charges were announced, including allegations that Wedding ordered the murder of a federal witness who was scheduled to testify against him.
• 💻 The witness was reportedly killed after Wedding allegedly published photographs of him and his wife on a website called "The Dirty News."
• ⚖️ The DOJ charged Wedding with witness tampering, intimidation, money laundering, and drug trafficking, with the Department of State offering up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest.