SANTA ANA (CNS) – Arraignment is expected Monday in Santa Ana for accused drug lord Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who faces federal charges alleging he ran a narcotics trafficking organization and ordered the killing of a witness.
The court appearance had originally been set to take place in downtown Los Angeles but over the weekend was shifted to Orange County.
The 44-year-old Wedding — who was sixth on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List until his arrest late last week — is believed to have been hiding in Mexico for more than a decade, and has been wanted on cocaine trafficking and murder charges since 2024.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X on Friday that Wedding was taken into custody in Mexico City on Thursday night. He was flown to the Los Angeles area on Friday to face federal charges.
A $15 million reward had been offered for information leading to his capture and conviction.
“This is a huge day for a safer North America, and the world, and a message that those who break our laws and harm our citizens will be brought to justice,” Patel posted.
Wedding was allegedly running a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California across the United States and Canada, as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel, according to Patel.
Wedding was indicted in October on multiple federal charges, including running a continuing criminal enterprise, committing murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and assorted drug crimes.
The nine-count updated indictment alleges that Wedding ordered the killing of a witness who was set to testify against him in a federal drug case.
Wedding is among 19 defendants — including a Canadian criminal barrister, a reggaeton musician, and a would-be gangland news website operator – – charged in connection with the Jan. 31, 2025, witness murder in Colombia.
Wedding, the case’s lead defendant, is accused of overseeing the operations of a criminal enterprise — including by engaging in witness intimidation tactics such as murder — and enriching himself with the enterprise’s laundered drug proceeds. In March 2025, Wedding was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
“Ryan Wedding’s athletic drive snowballed into a life of violence and, instead of conquering mountains, he mastered a deadly drug distribution enterprise,” Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles bureau, said in November.
Wedding competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
If convicted, Wedding — and the defendants charged in connection with the murder — could face life in federal prison, according to federal prosecutors.
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