How does a Canadian Olympic snowboarder end up as a drug-smuggling kingpin? Well, that may be the question on some folks' minds today, but the good news is that Ryan Wedding isn't in the drug-smuggling business any longer, because he's been on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List — and now he's in custody.
Ryan Wedding, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder suspected of becoming a cocaine smuggling kingpin responsible for multiple drug-related murders, has been arrested and brought to the U.S. to face charges, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference at an airport east of Los Angeles, FBI Director Kash Patel said Wedding was arrested Thursday evening in Mexico City after years on the run.
Wedding is the second Top Ten Most Wanted that the FBI has scored in a week. That's a good week's work by any measure.
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The FBI reportedly worked with Mexican officials and the Mexican military to catch Wedding, who was allegedly working with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Director Patel continued:
"This individual and his organization and 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," Patel said. "That ends today."
Patel described Wedding as the "largest narco-trafficker in modern times," akin to notorious drug lords like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar.
Wedding, 44, is on the 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. The U.S. government had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. Patel did not disclose whether the reward would be paid out.
Ryan Wedding competed in the Winter Olympics in 2002. He's been charged with overseeing a criminal enterprise, in addition to a bevy of drug smuggling charges. Wedding has also been implicated in the ordering of cartel and drug-related killings, including a witness who was scheduled to testify against him, along with two murders in Ontario, Canada, over a drug deal gone bad. This is a bad, bad guy, and we should be glad he's off the streets — any streets. And that's the whole point, isn't it?
It's a heck of a fall, from Olympic snowboarder — granted, Wedding finished 24th in men's snowboarding, so no medals for him — to drug kingpin and accused murderer. It seems his life of crime got started with a marijuana operation, which was busted by the Mounties, but Wedding was absent, and the evidence didn't warrant charging him. He reportedly went on to work with Russian and Iranian smugglers before falling in with the Mexican cartels. He did four years in the slammer along the way after trying to buy cocaine from an American federal agent.
This is a good guy to have behind bars.
The FBI does seem to be racking up the points this week.
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And to that, all I can say to Director Patel is, "Keep it up!"
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