Ryan Wedding, Olympic snowboarder turned FBI’s Most Wanted drug kingpin, arrested

On FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitive list

In 2025, his name was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, and authorities had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Wedding competed for his home country in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Olympic records show he participated in a single men’s snowboarding event, parallel giant slalom, finishing 24th.

Links to Sinaloa Cartel

According to FBI Director Kash Patel, Wedding was running his alleged operation as a member of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel. In 2024 he was with running a drug ring that used semitrucks to move cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada.

Authorities said his aliases included “El Jefe,” “Public Enemy” and “James Conrad Kin.”

Murder charges

In November, Bondi announced that he had also been indicted on charges of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to help him avoid extradition to the US.

Authorities said Wedding and co-conspirators used a Canadian website called “The Dirty News” to post a photograph of the witness so he could be identified and killed. The witness was then followed to a restaurant in Medellín in January and shot in the head.

Wedding faces separate drug trafficking charges in Canada that date back to 2015, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

‘Modern day El Chapo’

Patel said Wedding’s arrest was the result of international cooperation and praised Mexico’s government and “global partnerships” for their roles in the operation.

“When you go after a guy like Ryan Wedding, it takes a united front, and that’s what you’re seeing here,” he said, describing him a “modern day El Chapo” who “thought he could evade justice.