Former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin Ryan Wedding has been arrested in Mexico, capping off a yearslong manhunt and dealing what U.S. officials called a significant blow to a violent criminal network that has endangered communities across several borders.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice first announced Wedding’s capture in social media posts Friday morning, saying the 44-year-old fugitive was being transported to the United States to “face justice.”
Later in the morning, FBI Director Kash Patel touted the arrest as a testament to the importance of international and domestic collaboration, listing the Mexican government, multiple U.S. agencies and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as key players in the operation.
Speaking from the tarmac at California’s Ontario International Airport, Patel compared Wedding — whom he dubbed “the largest narco trafficker in modern times” — to a modern-day El Chapo or Pablo Escobar, referring to the notorious Mexican and Colombian drug lords.
“This individual and his organization and the Sinaloa Cartel poured narcotics into the streets of North America and killed too many of our youth and corrupted too many of our citizens,” Patel said.
“And that ends today.”
Officials declined to give details of the arrest, citing the ongoing investigation, but said Wedding was in custody and would make his first appearance in court on Monday.
Video footage released by the FBI shows Wedding — dressed in light jeans, a grey long-sleeved shirt and black quilted vest and ball cap — stepping off a plane with his hands cuffed in front of him, amid a cluster of FBI agents. He remained expressionless as he was led down the steps and onto the tarmac.
U.S. authorities said they are still seeking others for their alleged role in the criminal enterprise.
Mexico’s security secretary said on social media that a Canadian citizen had turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy. A member of Mexico’s security cabinet told The Associated Press that individual was Wedding. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Wedding, who authorities said has been on the run for years, is alleged to have ordered the murders of several people, including a witness who could testify against him in a 2024 narcotics case.
The hunt for the Thunder Bay, Ont., native intensified last year after U.S. officials placed Wedding on the FBI’s Top 10 most-wanted list and put up a $15-million reward for information leading to his capture. Patel would not comment on the reward when asked about it on Friday.
Wedding’s arrest should come as good news to the people and families he tormented, Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in the news conference.
Though the organization’s victims may never be the same, “today, they get the justice that they sought,” he said.
It also marks a “great day for public safety in Canada,” RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said in a statement.
“The capture of Ryan Wedding after a yearslong investigation, and this most recent achievement, demonstrates the importance of international collaboration and the success that can be achieved when law enforcement shares intelligence,” he said, adding RCMP worked closely with the FBI throughout the investigation.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Ottawa welcomes Wedding’s arrest as a “significant step forward in our efforts to protect communities from the devastating harms of organized crime and illicit drugs.”
“Major drug cartels are enemies of public safety, and that is why the government of Canada designated seven cartels as terrorist organizations last year, including the Sinaloa Cartel that had been offering protection to Ryan Wedding,” he said in a social media post.
With the alleged head of the organization now off the streets, there will likely be a shift in the narco-terrorism landscape over the next few months as others seek to fill the vacuum, said Michael Arntfield, a former police detective who teaches literary criminology at Western University in London, Ont.
The case has captivated Canadians in part because it’s rare to see one of our own on the FBI’s most-wanted list, Arntfield said. “To have a Canadian on there is, I think, novel in and of itself,” he said.
The allegations against Wedding also represent the kind of fall from grace that is “intuitively fascinating to people,” he said.
“It’s synonymous with Breaking Bad,” he said, referring to the hit crime television series.
“You’ve got this sort of descent into criminality that’s really out of a crime thriller,” he said. “To go from being on the Olympic snowboarding team and having that future to very quickly then getting in trouble with the law … and then running a multinational organized crime group is again, much like you would expect to see on TV.”
Wedding competed for Canada as a snowboarder in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Canadian and American law enforcement officials allege that in the years that followed the Salt Lake City games, he became deeply involved in drug trafficking.
He was convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010. U.S. authorities have alleged that after Wedding’s release from prison, he resumed drug trafficking under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
U.S. court documents said Wedding’s drug trafficking enterprise brought cocaine from Colombia into Mexico, then used semitrailers to distribute the drug in the United States and Canada. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has accused Wedding of being the largest cocaine trafficker in Canada.
Officials said Friday the organization shipped roughly 60 metric tons of cocaine through California on its way to Canada and used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.
Eight Canadians were arrested in November as part of the ongoing investigation into Wedding, including an Ontario lawyer accused of advising the murder of a federal witness and a jeweller who U.S. authorities allege was the “de facto bank” for the criminal enterprise.
The RCMP have said that Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015.
In Ontario, provincial police have alleged Wedding and another Canadian citizen arrested by Mexican authorities in the fall of 2024 orchestrated the murders of two members of a family in Caledon, Ont.
The 2023 shooting that killed the couple and seriously injured their adult daughter was meant as retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, but the family was “completely innocent,” with no involvement in the drug trade, police said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2026.
— With files from The Associated Press
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
