SANTA ANA , Calif. (TNND) — Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder and one of the FBI's Most Wanted, Ryan Wedding, pleaded not guilty to running a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating several killings after being arrested in Mexico last week by the FBI.

Wedding, who competed for his home country in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, had been in hiding in Mexico for over a decade when he was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in March 2025. Authorities had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, said Wedding is responsible for moving about 60 metric tons of cocaine through California "on its way to Canada."

"He was allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California to the United States and Canada - as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel," FBI Director Kash Patel announced after Wedding's arrest.

Mexican officials said Wedding turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and was flown to Southern California.

When speaking to reporters Monday outside the federal court in Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles, Wedding's defense attorney Anthony Colombo disputed that his client had turned himself in in Mexico and said he was living in Mexico, not hiding out there.

“He was arrested,” Colombo said after the brief hearing, offering no further details. “He did not surrender.”

Colombo said his client was in “good spirits" but added that “this has been a whirlwind for Mr. Wedding."

Federal prosecutors declined to comment after the hearing. Wedding was scheduled to be back in court Feb. 11, and a trial date was set for Mar. 24.

The judge ordered him held in custody, saying he could not immediately find conditions that would ensure public safety or Wedding’s appearance in court. He said he could consider bond if Wedding seeks it later.

In 2024, Wedding was charged with running a drug ring that used semitrucks to move cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada. His aliases included “El Jefe,” “Public Enemy” and “James Conrad Kin," according to the FBI.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in November that Wedding had been indicted on charges of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the U.S.

Wedding and co-conspirators used a Canadian website called “The Dirty News” to post a photograph of the witness so he could be identified and killed, according to authorities. The witness was then followed to a restaurant in Medellín in January and shot in the head.

Wedding was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and sentenced to prison in 2010. Online records show he was released from Bureau of Prisons custody in 2011.

In Canada, Wedding faces separate drug charges dating back to 2015.

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Editor's note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.