Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympian turned alleged drug kingpin who has drawn comparisons to Pablo Escobar and El Chapo, was taken into custody after a 17-month pursuit and more than a decade at large, federal authorities announced Friday.
In two indictments, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California laid out how Wedding, 44, and his associates allegedly trafficked more than $1 billion in cocaine across the U.S. and Canada and orchestrated multiple killings, including the assassination of a key government witness.
Thirty-six people have been charged for their alleged roles in Wedding’s organization, including a Canadian attorney, a crime blogger and multiple hitmen.
Here’s what we know about Wedding, his journey from a footnote in Olympic history to the FBI’s most wanted list, and what’s next in the case.
Who is Ryan Wedding?
Wedding was born into a snow sports family. His grandparents owned a small ski area in Thunder Bay, Ontario, a vibrant port city on Lake Superior. His dad skied competitively in college and his uncle coached Canada’s women’s alpine ski team through the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France. Wedding learned to ski before he could walk, according to reports in Canadian news outlets.
When Wedding was 12, his parents moved the family to Coquitlam, a Vancouver suburb, and Wedding switched from skiing to snowboarding. He was a quick study. Three years later, he was named to the Canadian national snowboard team.
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At 20, he qualified for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics in parallel giant slalom — which would later inspire the name of the FBI’s investigation, “Operation Giant Slalom.” On race days, he carved aggressive lines through the course. In a sport where athletes reach speeds upward of 70 mph, the 6-foot-3 Wedding is not wearing a helmet in photos of him racing in the 2002 Games.
Wedding failed to make it out of the first round of competition and finished 24th. Early in the FBI’s pursuit, ESPN reached out to several of Wedding’s former teammates, coaches and peers in the sport, but none were willing to speak on the record. Multiple Olympians and coaches who represented other countries at the 2002 Games told ESPN they don’t remember him.
Wedding arrived in Southern California on Friday after turning himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Courtesy of Federal Bureau of Investigation
What is he accused of?
U.S. prosecutors allege Wedding led a criminal enterprise that became the largest cocaine supplier in Canada. The organization cooked cocaine in kitchens run by a Colombian paramilitary group and worked with Mexican cartels to move the drugs into Southern California before distributing them across the United States and Canada, according to an indictment.
In November, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding controlled “one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in the world.”
“He’s a modern-day El Chapo,” FBI Director Kash Patel said Friday. “He is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”
Wedding was convicted in 2010 for attempting to buy 24 kilograms of cocaine in Los Angeles from a U.S. government agent and sentenced to four years in prison. He was released the following year. He was charged again for drug trafficking crimes in 2015 by Canadian authorities but was never captured. Federal authorities allege he continued to traffic cocaine into Canada for the next decade.
In their search for Wedding, who the FBI believed was hiding in Mexico, federal agents seized a rare 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR valued at more than $13 million, while Mexican law enforcement seized dozens of rare motorcycles, mostly Ducatis, valued at more than $40 million, including three bikes reportedly raced by Italian MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi.
They also found two Canadian national snowboarding medals.
According to the indictments, the FBI recruited one of Wedding’s trusted lieutenants as an informant in 2023, and with the informant’s help, intercepted critical communications between Wedding and a complex network of couriers and truck drivers moving hundreds of kilos of cocaine through the Greater Los Angeles area.
FBI agents also collected evidence showing how Wedding and his organization allegedly ordered the deaths of other drug traffickers. American and Canadian court documents contain details connecting Wedding to the killing of an alleged drug trafficker shot in his driveway in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The court records also describe a hit that matches the killing of a couple in their home in the Toronto suburbs in 2023, which prosecutors say was a case of mistaken identity. Wedding’s organization had sought to retaliate against a person they believed stole 300 kilos of cocaine from them, according to court records.
Authorities seized dozens of rare motorcycles, mostly Ducatis, valued at more than $40 million, that they believe belonged to Wedding. Courtesy of Federal Bureau of Investigation
To what lengths did Wedding allegedly go to avoid capture?
Last January, a man eating lunch at a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, was shot five times in the head.
Federal authorities say the killing was the culmination of a monthslong plot orchestrated by Wedding to avoid extradition to the United States.
On the same day U.S. prosecutors unsealed a 2024 indictment against Wedding, which contained details about the government informant, a Canadian criminal defense attorney who worked for Wedding’s organization told him that if the government’s witness were to be “eliminated and could not appear in court in the United States, the indictment would most certainly be dismissed,” according to court records.
The indictment does not name the witness, but media reports have identified him as Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a former member of Wedding’s organization whom he had met while in prison in Texas.
Federal prosecutors say Wedding put a $5 million bounty on Acebedo-Garcia, and through intermediaries, began searching for him. Wedding’s organization paid a Canadian crime blogger to post pictures of Acebedo-Garcia accusing him of ratting out “one of the strongest underworld networks,” according to court records.
Once they obtained Acebedo-Garcia’s contact information, Wedding and an associate hired a sex worker based in Orlando to lure Acebedo-Garcia to the restaurant in Medellín, prosecutors allege. In return, Wedding paid for her cosmetic surgery and mortgage.
Last January, Wedding’s organization sent an assassin crew to the restaurant, prosecutors say. One man shot Acebedo-Garcia while another took a photograph of his body before fleeing the scene. Wedding’s organization paid the alleged assassins $500,000 in cryptocurrency, according to court documents.
Prosecutors say the crime blogger identified the dead man as Acebedo-Garcia and posted a picture on Instagram showing the bottom half of his body lying on the ground with a caption that read: “Boom! Headshot.”
“He got hit with a sniper while sitting at a restaurant,” the blogger allegedly wrote. “The criminal underworld will always find you. The world isn’t big enough to hide.”
How did the FBI finally catch Wedding?
The FBI put Wedding on its Ten Most Wanted list last March and, following the slaying of Acebedo-Garcia, increased its reward to $15 million for information leading to Wedding’s capture.
The Associated Press reported Friday that Wedding turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. According to Patel, Wedding was flown to Southern California’s Ontario Airport and is now in custody.
Ryan Wedding represented Canada at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, competing in parallel giant slalom. Adam Pretty/Getty Images
“The murder of a witness in Colombia earlier this year was a cruel, cold-blooded act that could not and did not go unanswered,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California said in November.
Wedding is expected to make his initial court appearance Monday morning, according to Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office. His financial assets have also been frozen, Davis said.
Wedding, the criminal defense attorney, the crime blogger, the Orlando-based sex worker and others face drug trafficking, witness tampering and murder conspiracy charges.
If convicted, Wedding and the other defendants charged in connection with Acebedo-Garcia’s killing face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Some of the defendants, including the lawyer, are in Canada awaiting extradition to the United States. Five of the men accused of moving cocaine through California have already pleaded guilty, while others, like Wedding’s alleged second-in-command, Andrew Clark, are scheduled to stand trial in October in California.
Two of Wedding’s alleged associates are still wanted by the FBI. One is thought to be hiding in the Dominican Republic, while a woman accused of helping Wedding launder money is a resident of Mexico.
The men seen at the restaurant in Medellín remain unidentified. The FBI has published their photos and is asking for information to aid in their identification and capture.
