OAN Staff Blake Wolf
11:00 AM – Wednesday, November 19, 2025
The Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a federal indictment against Ryan James Wedding, a 44-year-old Canadian former Olympic snowboarder, who competed for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Winter Olympics, accusing him of leading an international drug trafficking organization linked to the Sinaloa cartel.
His new charges explicitly include murder in connection with witness tampering and intimidation, stemming from Wedding’s alleged orchestration of the January 31st killing of Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a cooperating witness and former associate who was gunned down in a Colombian restaurant just before he was scheduled to testify against Wedding in a U.S. federal drug trial.
Wedding is a member of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, being described as an “extremely violent criminal believed to be responsible for the murder of numerous people abroad.” He allegedly ordered the murder of the witness in hopes that their death would lead to all charges being dropped against him.
The DOJ also increased the reward for information leading to Wedding’s arrest “from $10 million to $15 million,” while announcing the arrest of 12 individuals said to be involved in Wedding’s international drug trafficking organization.
According to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Wedding has smuggled “60 metric tons” of cocaine into Southern California every year via semi trucks through the Mexican border. The 60 metric tons (equivalent to about 132,000 pounds) supports an estimated $1 billion annual revenue for Wedding’s network, which distributes the drugs across the U.S. and Canada.
“Wedding collaborates closely with the Sinaloa Cartel, a foreign terrorist organization, to flood not only American but also Canadian communities with cocaine coming from Colombia,” Bondi stated at a Wednesday press conference. “His organization is responsible for importing approximately six metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles via semi trucks from Mexico.”
FBI Director Kash Patel also spoke at the Wednesday press conference, labeling Wedding the “modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar.”
“You do not get to be a drug kingpin and evade the law,” Patel stated. “Make no mistake about it. Ryan Wedding is a modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar. He’s a modern-day iteration of ‘El Chapo’ Guzman. This Justice Department and this FBI will work with our Canadian counterparts and government officials across the world to bring him to justice.”
“He is responsible for engineering a narco-trafficking and narco-terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time. He will not evade justice. We are here today because this Department of Justice behind the attorney general’s brilliant leadership and the deputy attorney general have made it clear to the American people, with the indictments they have brought, that law enforcement agencies like this FBI will lead the effort to go out there and make sure these animals are brought to justice.”
Wedding was first publicly linked to law enforcement scrutiny in 2006 through his name appearing in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) search warrant for a property in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, tied to a large-scale marijuana grow operation.
The raid on September 22, 2006, resulted in the seizure of approximately 6,800 marijuana plants, along with dried cannabis valued at around $10 million, a shotgun, and ammunition — but no charges were ever filed against Wedding or anyone else involved.
Wedding also had a separate run-in with law enforcement in 2009 after the FBI concluded that he was working for a Vancouver drug lord. Wedding and two unnamed friends of his were arrested while traveling from Vancouver to California, allegedly to purchase 24 kilograms (around 52 pounds) of Colombian cocaine.
Following the 2009 arrest, Wedding served four years in prison and agreed to forfeit over $121,000 — in exchange for agreeing to drop his appeal request.
Since 2015, he has been a fugitive on the run and is assessed by U.S. authorities to be actively operating with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
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