FILE PHOTO: Ryan Wedding of Canada takes a practice run for the men's parallel giant slalom of the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Park City, February 13, 2002. Competition in the men's parallel giant slalom begins February 14, 2002. REUTERS/Jeff J Mitchell/File Photo
Jan 23 (Reuters) - Ryan Wedding, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder suspected of becoming a cocaine smuggling kingpin, has been arrested and is being brought to the U.S. to face charges, U.S. officials said on Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest in separate posts on X.
Wedding, 44, is on the U.S. 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.
He was taken into custody in Mexico on Thursday, Patel said.
"This is a huge day for a safer North America, and the world," Patel said.
U.S. and Canadian officials described Wedding in November as a "narco-trafficker" on par with notorious drug lords like Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Pablo Escobar.
Bondi said at that time that Wedding worked closely with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel controlling an operation responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.
Wedding, who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been charged with overseeing a criminal enterprise and various drug trafficking charges, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Wedding was also accused of ordering several drug-related murders, including that of a U.S. federal witness in Colombia in January 2025 before he could testify against him, the Justice Department previously said.
Patel was scheduled to announce a "significant development in a major investigation" at a press conference Friday morning in California alongside Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Michael Duheme and other U.S. law enforcement officials, according to the FBI.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Deepa Babington)
