Former Olympic snowboarder and FBI Most Wanted fugitive Ryan Wedding arrested
By Josh Campbell, Eric Levenson, CNN
(CNN) — Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been arrested, a law enforcement source familiar with the capture tells CNN.
Wedding was one of FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives, with a $15 million reward for his capture, after being indicted for allegedly running a criminal enterprise, cocaine trafficking and murder in an operation stretching across the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.
Attorney General Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds. Officials had believed Wedding to be somewhere in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel.
Competing for Team Canada, Wedding finished as the 24th-best parallel giant slalom snowboarder in the world at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Wedding’s arrest was first reported by NBC.
Not Wedding’s first case
This won’t be the first time Wedding has faced a judge.
In June 2008, Wedding was arrested along with two other people and accused of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute cocaine, according to a criminal complaint.
The arrest came after Wedding and associates traveled from Canada to San Diego, California, to buy cocaine as part of a drug trafficking organization based in Vancouver, according to an affidavit. The operation was a sting, though, and FBI agents arrested the trio after the deal was done, the affidavit states. Investigators allegedly found $100,000 in cash in their hotel room, the affidavit states.
His two co-defendants pleaded guilty, according to court records, but Wedding took the case to trial. He was found guilty in November 2009, and in 2010, was sentenced to four years in prison, per court records.
At his sentencing hearing, Wedding invoked his sports background in speaking to the court, saying it was his personal goal to rebuild his reputation.
In October 2024, however, federal prosecutors released a superseding indictment charging Wedding with running a criminal enterprise, cocaine trafficking and murder in an operation stretching across the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia. The indictment says the enterprise began around 2011, when Wedding was released from prison.
The crimes Wedding is accused of now, though, are even more serious.
Prosecutors accuse him, along with another man, of ordering the killings of several people. They say he directed the November 2023 murders of two members of a family in Ontario “in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment” and of ordering the murder of another person in May 2024 over a drug debt.
The-CNN-Wire
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