Ryan Wedding, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, has been arrested in Mexico and brought to the United States to face cocaine trafficking and murder charges, FBI chief Kash Patel announced Friday.
Wedding, 44, has been on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list, and the US State Department recently offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture.
"Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times," Patel said at an airport tarmac press conference in Ontario, California. "He is a modern day El Chapo. He is a modern day Pablo Escobar."
"This individual and his organization in the Sinaloa Cartel poured narcotics into the streets of North America and killed too many of our youth and corrupted too many of our citizens," he said.
Patel said Wedding -- whose aliases include "El Jefe," "Giant" and "Public Enemy" -- was arrested in Mexico City on Thursday night.
The FBI director declined to provide any details about Wedding's capture other than to say it was an "inter-agency wide effort" that included law enforcement partners in Mexico.
Patel said Wedding is believed to have been hiding in Mexico for over a decade and has been wanted on cocaine trafficking and murder charges since 2024.
Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, told reporters that Wedding is expected to have an initial US court appearance on Monday morning.
Wedding is accused of smuggling some 60 metric tons of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States and Canada and of "orchestrating multiple murders of victims and government witnesses," Davis said.
Davis said 36 people connected to Wedding's alleged drug trafficking ring have been arrested and assets worth tens of millions of dollars have been seized including luxury vehicles, valuable artwork and jewelry.
Seven people allegedly connected to Wedding's cocaine smuggling operation were arrested in Canada in November, including his lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, and the United States is seeking their extradition.
According to US federal prosecutors, Paradkar allegedly told Wedding that if he killed a witness in a pending criminal case against him the case would go away.
The witness was shot five times in the head and killed in January 2025 at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia, they said.
Wedding competed for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, finishing 24th in the parallel giant slalom.
