Ryan Wedding, former Olympic snowboarder turned alleged 'cocaine kingpin' arrested
WASHINGTON (TNND) — Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, Ryan Wedding, has been arrested in Mexico after being on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list since March 2025, federal authorities announced Friday morning.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed Wedding was flown to the U.S. "where he will face justice," and claimed the arrest is a "direct result of President Trump’s law-and-order leadership."
"Under @POTUS, criminals have no safe harbor," Bondi wrote on X. "Director Patel has worked tirelessly to bring fugitives to justice. We are grateful to our incredible Ambassador Ron Johnson and the Mexican authorities for assisting us in this case."
FBI Director Kash Patel said Wedding was the "sixth top ten most wanted fugitive" captured within the last year. During a news conference, Patel referred to him as the "modern day Pablo Escobar."
"Wedding is believed to have been hiding in Mexico for over a decade - and has been wanted on charges for cocaine trafficking and murder since 2024," Patel noted on social media. "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."
He praised President Trump for "letting good cops be cops," adding "the results speak for themselves."
Mexico's Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said on social media that Patel left Mexico on Friday with two detainees, one a Canadian citizen who turned himself in and someone else who was among the FBI's most-wanted.
Patel told reporters that Alejandro "Alex" Rosales Castillo was the second most-wanted fugitive captured in Mexico and the fifth captured under the Trump administration.
Castillo was among the 10 Most Wanted since Oct. 24, 2017, after he was charged with murdering 23-year-old Truc Quan “Sandy” Ly Le in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, said during the news conference that Wedding was the 500th capture in the history of the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Davis added the former Olympian is responsible for moving about 60 metric tons of cocaine through California "on its way to Canada." So far, 36 people have been arrested "for their role in this organization," and the U.S. Treasury Department has placed sanctions on 18 of Wedding's associates.
Authorities had offered a $15 million reward for the arrest of 44-year-old Wedding, who is facing charges related to multi-national drug trafficking and the killing of a federal witness.
The snowboarder competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
In 2024, he 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.
