Accused murderer, cocaine trafficker and former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding was arrested in Mexico and is now in federal custody, the FBI has confirmed.
FBI director Kash Patel declined to go into specific detail about the circumstances surrounding the arrest when addressing media Friday in California. A member of Mexico’s security cabinet anonymously told The Associated Press that Wedding turned himself in at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City on Thursday.
The 44-year-old Canadian had been wanted by the FBI for an alleged transnational drug ring that Attorney General Pam Bondi claims is responsible for bringing around 60 metric tons of cocaine into Southern California annually.
Wedding was allegedly under the protection Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel for the better part of the last decade and was compared by Patel to that group’s imprisoned former leader, Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.
He was previously convicted in the United States on cocaine distribution charges and later serviced 3 1/2 years of a four-year prison sentence. In 2024, he was charged with eight felonies, including three counts of murder, and last November, a grand jury indictment against Wedding was unsealed, charging him with the death of a federal witness who was supposed to testify against the former snowboarder.
NBC was the first to report the arrest, which took place in Mexico City on Thursday night. The indictment was filed by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Wedding will stand before a judge on Monday, FBI Los Angeles Field Office assistant director Akil Davis told reporters Friday.
Accused cocaine trafficker and former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been arrested and is now in custody, two law enforcement officials told NBC News on Friday
Last month, federal authorities released a photo of a shirtless Wedding laying in his bed
Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI LA Field Office, speaks while standing next to FBI Director Kash Patel, during an announcement of the apprehension of Ryan Wedding
The FBI recently upped its reward for information on Wedding to $15 million after the snowboarder spent close to a decade on the run. It is unclear if that money will be awarded to anyone, seeing as Wedding reportedly turned himself in.
Patel declined to go into further detail about the government’s pursuit of Wedding on Friday, saying he wanted to ‘safeguard’ the investigation.
‘It goes without saying to go down to Mexico to find a guy who’s been on the lam for multiple years for some of the most egregious crimes on planet Earth, takes an inter agency-wide effort led out by President [Donald] Trump, our DOJ and our partners in Mexico, and [we are] very grateful for that partnership,’ Patel told reporters Friday in California.
This marks the sixth member of the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list who has been arrested this year, according to Patel.
The FBI Director also thanked Mexico for its cooperation in taking down Wedding, as well as the RCMP.
He went on to credit US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald D. Johnson for ‘quarterbacking’ this case over the last year.
Likewise, Bondi thanked Patel online for his contributions to the arrest: ‘Director Patel has worked tirelessly to bring fugitives to justice. We are grateful to our incredible Ambassador Ron Johnson and the Mexican authorities for assisting us in this case.’
The FBI Director additionally identified a second fugitive apprehended in Mexico as Alejandro Rosales Castillo, a 27-year-old US citizen charged with murdering a North Carolina woman, Truc Quan ‘Sandy’ Ly Le, in 2016.
Law enforcement agencies across the U.S., Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Colombia have worked together to arrest 36 individuals allegedly connected to Wedding, while the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 19 people, including the former Olympian.
The pursuit of Wedding had been gathering momentum for some time.
A month ago, the FBI released never-before-seen photos of a $40 million seizure of vehicles believed to be owned by Wedding. Among the items seized were 62 motorbikes, as well as a rare, $13 million 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR Roadster.
While not verified, speculation on social media claimed that some of the motorbikes have a famous history, potentially even being ridden by Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez in MotoGP.
Also in the recent haul, FBI agents found two other vehicles, two Olympic medals, methamphetamine, marijuana, works of art, and ammunition. It is not clear who the medals belong to, given Wedding finished 24th in the parallel giant slalom at his sole Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.
FBI’s Kash Patel announces the apprehension of Ryan Wedding, who will be in court Monday
Wedding represented Canada during the Winter Olympics in 2002 but he did not win a medal
The Canadian citizen believed to be living in Mexico was considered armed and dangerous
The US Treasury Department recently claimed Wedding has built a ‘complex web’ of assets to hide his wealth, using luxury cars, motorcycles, properties, cryptocurrency and front businesses.’
In November, Patel said Wedding was responsible for ‘engineering a narco trafficking and narco terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time.’ He and his alleged accomplices used California stash houses and semitrucks to move tons of cocaine and fentanyl through North America, according to authorities.
That network was previously described by Bondi as ‘one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in the world.’
Authorities have also said there was ‘some evidence’ Wedding had undergone cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance and further evade detection. He has not been seen publicly since his arrest.
Earlier this month, the FBI added an alleged Wedding accomplice, Bianca Canastillo-Madrid, to its ‘Wanted’ list. She was subject of a federal arrest warrant after being charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to export cocaine and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
Wedding was wanted by the FBI with the organization offering $15 million for information
Roughly 201 kilos of cocaine are seen after allegedly being confiscated from Wedding’s drug-trafficking operation. The seizure took place in 2025, prior to Wedding’s arrest this week
A native of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Wedding became a competitive snowboarder as a teenager in British Columbia before going on to compete at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where he finished 24th in the men’s parallel giant slalom.
Afterwards he got into bodybuilding, real estate speculation and allegedly began growing marijuana at a 6,800-plant warehouse that was later raided by the RCMP.
However, Wedding was not at the property at the time and evaded prosecution due to a lack of evidence.
He was further accused of partnering with Iranian and Russian cocaine smugglers and in 2010, was convicted of trying to buy the drug from an undercover U.S. government agent. He was sentenced to four years in prison, given credit for time served and released in late 2011.
FBI director Kash Patel labeled the ex-Olympian a ‘modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar’
Among the items seized by the Mexican government were 62 motorbikes and Olympic medals
Two Olympic medals were also found by the FBI, despite Wedding finishing 24th in his Games
In 2024, Wedding was charged as part of the US government’s Operation Giant Slalom for murder and leading a cocaine trafficking cartel.
Along with his alleged accomplice Andrew Clark, Wedding is alleged to have ordered the murders of married couple Jagtar Sidhu, 57, and Harbhajan Sidhu, 55, in November of 2023 as well as 39-year-old Mohammed Zafar in May of 2024 and a federal witness in Colombia in January of 2025.
The Sidhus were believed to have been killed over a stolen shipment of drugs, although Ontario Provincial Police Detective-Inspector Brian McDermott said in 2024 the assassins ‘shot the wrong people.’
Their daughter, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, 28, was also shot 13 times in the attack, but survived.
‘My father was shot in front of me,’ she told CBS News in 2024. ‘I heard my mother’s last screams. After that, there was complete silence. Only the noises of gunshots.’
Clark was previously arrested in Mexico in 2024 and extradited to the United States. He’s pleaded not guilty to four murders in Ontario, Canada.
