Drug kingpin Ryan Wedding, former Canadian Olympian arrested by FBI in Mexico: Kash Patel
Jan 24, 2026
California (USA), January 24, 2026 (ANI): Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder suspected of becoming a cocaine smuggling kingpin, was arrested and brought to the U.S. to face charges, U.S. officials said on Friday (January 23). Wedding, 44, is on the U.S. FBI's "Top 10 Most Wanted" list for allegedly running a transnational drug trafficking network responsible for transporting hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and Canada. He was taken into custody in Mexico on Thursday (January 22), according to FBI director Kash Patel. U.S. and Canadian officials described Wedding in November as a "narco-trafficker" on par with notorious drug lords like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar. Wedding, who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been charged with overseeing a criminal enterprise and various drug trafficking charges, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Wedding was also accused of ordering several drug-related murders, including that of a U.S. federal witness in Colombia in January 2025 before he could testify against him, the Justice Department previously said.
