Former Olympic Snowboarder Arrested After Making FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted

Photo Credit: Getty Images via BBC

Ryan Wedding, a 44-year-old former Olympic snowboarder and alleged drug kingpin, was arrested in Mexico on Jan. 22 and immediately flown to California, where he is now facing 17 federal charges. These charges consist of murder, drug trafficking, witness tampering, and money laundering. Wedding has pleaded “not guilty” to all 17 federal charges in US court, according to CBC. 

Wedding has been on the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives list since March 2025, having been accused of running a multinational drug trafficking operation, as per CBC. The US Department of State put out a $10 million reward for information on Wedding, and increased it to $15 million in November 2025, according to CNN. 

Before becoming an alleged drug kingpin, Wedding was a prominent Canadian athlete. According to Olympedia, at the age of 15, Wedding was a member of the Canadian National Freestyle Ski Team and won a silver medal in the 2001 Junior World Championships. He finished in the top 40 athletes of the World Cup parallel slalom standing in 2002, and he qualified for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, where he finished in 24th place. After this, Wedding gave up competitive snowboarding.

Following his retirement from snowboarding, Ryan Wedding became involved in criminal activities.

In 2006, Ryan Wedding was named alongside another competitive snowboarder in a search warrant of a house in Maple Ridge. Police found and seized 6,800 marijuana plants from the house, but Wedding was not charged with any crimes, according to the Vancouver Sun. In June 2008, Wedding was arrested in the US after travelling with friends from Vancouver to California to buy 24 kilos of cocaine. In November 2009, he was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to 48 months in a US federal prison. He was released from prison in 2011, and according to the Vancouver Sun, investigators allege that he resumed drug trafficking. 

Alongside drug trafficking charges, Wedding was also arrested on Jan. 22 for allegedly orchestrating the murder of Jonathan Acebedo-Garciam, a federal witness in a case against him. Garcia was shot in the head five times by a hit squad on Jan. 31, 2025, in Medellin, Colombia, after Wedding had placed a $5 million US bounty on his head, as per CBC. Earlier, Wedding had called Garcia “the rat” and a “snitch,” according to The Guardian.

According to the Vancouver Sun, prosecutors say that Wedding displayed his urge for revenge when he posted a photograph of Garcia on a Canadian blog called The Dirty Newz in November 2024. The post included a caption, stating: “This guy single-handedly [ratted] out one of the strongest underworld networks that this [world] has seen. Good chance he’ll never be found again.”  The FBI Los Angeles wrote in an online news release on Mar. 6, 2025, that Wedding had also orchestrated the murders of several unnamed others. 

Following a confirmation of Garcia's death, Wedding allegedly arranged the payment of approximately $500,000 to members of the conspiracy, as per CTV. On  Feb. 18, CBC reported that investigators suspect Wedding hired Oficina de Envigado, a Colombian crime syndicate once linked to the late Pablo Escobar (dubbed the “King of Cocaine”), to carry out the killing.

On Dec. 24, 2025, in an online press release, the Mexican government announced the seizure of items that were “related to a former Olympic athlete, who is among the 10 most wanted fugitives by US authorities.” However, they did not specifically name Wedding. The items seized from multiple properties in Mexico consisted of 62 high-end motorcycles, two vehicles, artwork, two Olympic medals, drugs, and other items. The FBI Los Angeles validated this account later, stating that Mexican authorities had “seized a large number of motorcycles” that were estimated to be worth approximately $40 million, believed to belong to Ryan Wedding.

On Jan. 26, the judge for Ryan Wedding’s court case ruled that no bail was warranted for him and that he was to remain detained. His trial is set to start on Mar. 24. 

Wedding will face an automatic life sentence if convicted on his 17 charges related to murder, drug trafficking, and witness tampering. Wedding’s attorney Anthony Colombo has said the case is also eligible for the death penalty, though he does not expect the US attorney's office to continue that action, according to CBC. However, if this were to happen, Canada’s involvement in the case would be complicated.

According to CBC, Dalhousie University law professor Robert Currie said that “if the death penalty is on the table, Canadian police cannot co-operate with the US to facilitate the investigation anymore,” because Canada does not have the death penalty. "The entire tilt of our law would suggest that the death penalty puts really significant obstacles in front of the [Canadian] police to be able to co-operate, to send evidence, to send officers to testify in the US." 

Wedding is still facing multiple charges in Canada, following a cocaine-import conspiracy uncovered by the RCMP in 2015 when Wedding was in Montreal. Currie says that while Canada could legally request Wedding to be extradited to Canada to face the Canadian charges, it's very unlikely they would do so, given that there is already a “massive law enforcement co-operation effort” on the case.