Former Olympic snowboarder and alleged drug kingpin Ryan Wedding has been arrested after nearly a year on the FBI’s most wanted list, according to reports citing law enforcement sources.
Wedding was wanted by the feds for running a transnational drug trafficking enterprise, shipping massive amounts of cocaine from Colombia to the US and Canada.
Wedding is also accused of involvement in several murders.
Authorities will share more details on the arrest of Wedding — whose aliases include “El Jefe,” “Giant,” “Public Enemy,” “James Conrad King,” and “Jesse King” — at a Friday morning news conference, according to NBC News, which first reported the arrest.
Wedding was added to the FBI’s list of ten most wanted fugitives early last year, with the feds bumping the reward to $15 million in November for information leading to his arrest and/or prosecution — the highest bounty of any on the FBI’s list.
Wedding, who competed for Canada as a snowboarder at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, allegedly smuggled 60 metric tons of cocaine into the US through Mexico and into southern California, officials said.
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and in his native Canada,” said Akil Davis, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office when he was added to the agency’s Most Wanted List in March.
In November, he was charged with ordering the killing of a federal witness who was scheduled to testify against him.
The Thunder Bay, Ontario-born fugitive was believed to be living in Mexico working closely with the Sinaloa Cartel, according to authorities.
And the FBI warned Wedding may have dramatically altered his appearance — including changing his hair or even possibly undergoing plastic surgery to evade capture.
His alleged number two, Andrew Clark, 34 — also a Canadian citizen — was arrested in October 2024 in Mexico and extradited to the US to face charges.Wedding and Clark allegedly directed the Nov. 2023 murders of two members of a family in Ontario, Canada, in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment that passed through California, according to officials.
They also allegedly ordered the murder of another victim in May 2024 over a drug debt, according to the FBI.
