Ryan Wedding arrested after manhunt for ex-Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, officials say

Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding, an alleged drug kingpin who's been accused of orchestrating multiple murders, was arrested in Mexico and taken to the U.S., Justice Department officials announced Friday.

Wedding, a 44-year-old Canadian national, was taken into custody in Mexico City on Thursday night, FBI Director Kash Patel said at a news conference at Southern California's Ontario International Airport east of Los Angeles. During the news conference, Patel gestured to a plane behind him and told reporters Wedding had been taken off the plane.

"Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco-trafficker in modern times," Patel said. "He is a modern-day 'El Chapo,' he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar, and he thought he could evade justice."

"El Chapo" is an alias for Joaquin Guzman, a onetime leader of the notorious Mexican drug ring known as the Sinaloa Cartel who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. According to the FBI, Wedding also used aliases, including "El Jefe," "Giant" and "Public Enemy."

Patel also said another fugitive who was arrested in Mexico last week, Alejandro Rosales Castillo, was brought to the U.S. on the same plane as Wedding and would be taken east later Friday. Patel said Castillo's arrest wasn't related to Wedding's apprehension.

Patel told reporters he was in Mexico on a previously planned trip. He said the Mexican government worked with the U.S. to apprehend Wedding.

"This was a great operation that came together through interagency success," Patel said.

Patel said he wouldn't provide additional details about Wedding's arrest "to safeguard the integrity of the ongoing investigation." He declined to comment on the $15 million reward that was being offered by the U.S. for Wedding.

When officials increased the reward in November, Attorney General Pam Bondi described Wedding's alleged operation as "one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world."

Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, said Wedding was expected to make his initial appearance in federal court Monday morning. Davis said investigators worked for over a year to arrest Wedding.

"Ryan Wedding tormented several people and several families that will never be the same, but today, they get the justice that they sought," Davis said.

Wedding, who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, has been accused of running a major drug trafficking network that moved cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the U.S. and Canada. Patel said in a social media post Friday that Wedding was running his alleged operation as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel and that Wedding believed to have been hiding out in Mexico for over a decade.

Wedding was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last year. 

In November, Wedding was accused of placing a "multimillion-dollar bounty" on a federal witness who was involved in a narcotics case against him.

According to the FBI, Wedding and his second-in-command Andrew Clark, 34, allegedly also ordered the killings of two members of a Canadian family in 2023 in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

Clark was extradited to the U.S. from Mexico last year.

The pair are also accused of directing the killing of another person in 2024 over a drug debt, according to the FBI.