Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list, has been arrested
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding was among the FBI’s leading fugitives and is facing related charges. multinational drug trafficking And murder of a federal witnessHe was arrested, two people told The Associated Press on Friday.
Wedding, 44, is accused of running a drug trafficking operation, and authorities say he planned several murders to further his 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.
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Wedding’s arrest was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The arrest is expected to be announced at a news conference with FBI Director Kash Patel in California late Friday morning. The wedding was captured in Mexico, an official said.
The FBI released a new photo of Wedding last month and said it was believed to have been taken in Mexico during the summer.
Wedding competed for her home country, Canada, at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
He was accused in 2024 of running a drug ring that used semi-trucks to transport cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada. Authorities said his aliases were “El Jefe,” “The Public Enemy” and “James Conrad Kin.”
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In November, U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi announced that Wedding was also charged with organizing the murder of a witness in Colombia to prevent his extradition to the United States.
Authorities said Wedding and his co-conspirators used Canada’s “The Dirty News” website to post a photo of the witness in an attempt to identify and kill him. The witness was later tracked to a restaurant in Medellín in January and shot in the head.
Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada dating back to 2015, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Federal records show Wedding was previously convicted of conspiring to distribute cocaine in the United States and sentenced to prison in 2010.
