Former Olympic snowboarder turned FBI fugitive Ryan Wedding pleaded not guilty to two indictments as he appeared in federal court on Monday.
Wedding, 44, was arrested in Mexico City last week and was flown to Southern California after a yearlong effort by authorities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and the Dominican Republic to detain him.
He faces multiple drug conspiracy counts and four counts of murder and attempted murder in connection with a billion-dollar multinational drug trafficking ring authorities claim he ran.
Wearing a jailhouse jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles, the alleged drug kingpin made his initial appearance in federal court in Santa Ana, California.
He smiled briefly, then clasped his hands and leaned back in his chair before reviewing papers with his attorney. When asked by U.S. Magistrate John D. Early if he read the indictments filed against him, Wedding answered, ‘I’ve read them both, yes.’
The judge ordered him held in custody, saying he could not immediately find conditions that would ensure public safety or Wedding’s appearance in court. He said he could consider bond if Wedding seeks it later.
Accused cocaine trafficker and former Olympian Ryan Wedding was arrested on Friday
The Canadian is pictured left in a courtroom sketch as he made his first court appearance
The former snowboarder, 44, is pictured being taken off a plane in handcuffs in California
The trial against the former Olympian is set to start March 24 in downtown Los Angeles. A status conference in the case has been scheduled for February 11.
Wedding was 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 of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel for the better part of the last decade and was compared by FBI director Kash Patel to that group’s imprisoned former leader, Joaquín ‘ El Chapo’ Guzmán.
When speaking to reporters Monday outside the federal court in Santa Ana, south of Los Angeles, Wedding’s defense attorney Anthony Colombo disputed that his client had turned himself in in Mexico and said he was living in Mexico, not hiding out there.
‘He was arrested,’ Colombo said after the brief hearing, offering no further details. ‘He did not surrender.’
Colombo said his client was in ‘good spirits’ but added that ‘this has been a whirlwind for Mr. Wedding.’
Federal prosecutors declined to comment after the hearing.
Wedding was previously convicted in the United States on cocaine distribution charges and later served 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.
Wedding pleaded not guilty to two indictments in front of a federal judge in California
Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, speaks outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse
Wedding represented Canada during the Winter Olympics in 2002 but he did not win a medal
The FBI had 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 following Wedding’s arrest on Friday in California.
The FBI Director also thanked Mexico for its cooperation in taking down Wedding, as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
He went on to credit US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald D. Johnson for ‘quarterbacking’ this case over the last year.
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.
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.
FBI’s Kash Patel announces the apprehension of Ryan Wedding, who will be in court Monday
Last month, federal authorities released a photo of a shirtless Wedding laying in his bed
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.
The US Treasury Department claimed Wedding has built a ‘complex web’ of assets to hide his wealth, using luxury cars, motorcycles, properties, cryptocurrency and front businesses.’
Authorities have also said there was ‘some evidence’ Wedding had undergone cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance and further evade detection.
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.’
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
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.
Wedding was wanted by the FBI with the organization offering $15 million for information
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.
