Wedding faces charges that include murder and money laundering
Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding has been arrested in Mexico by the FBI, according to The Associated Press.
Wedding, 44, was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List for charges that include murder and money laundering. He is also accused of being the leader the largest cocaine distribution operation in his native Canada.
The FBI, which announced in November it was increasing the reward for information leading to Wedding's arrest and/or conviction from $10 million to $15 million, is expected to make the announcement on Friday.
Wedding placed 24th in the parallel giant slalom as a part of Team Canada during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Department of Justice claims that, since then, he built a criminal enterprise that worked with prominent Mexican cartels to move hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia into Mexico by boat or plane, then into the U.S. and Canada via semi trucks.
Additionally, authorities allege that Wedding's group orchestrated the murder of three people, one of them a federal witness who was set to testify against Wedding before he was gunned down at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia. Wedding allegedly found the witness by posting his picture to a website that has since been taken down.
During a November news conference, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Wedding "one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizers in the world," while FBI director Kash Patel described him as "a modern-day iteration of Pablo Escobar."
Bondi claimed over 2,000 kilos of cocaine have been seized over the course of the investigation, as well as "numerous" weapons, $3.2 million in cryptocurrency and $13 million in other assets.
Wedding also faces separate charges from 2015 for drug trafficking in Canada. He had been previously convicted in the U.S. conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to prison in 2010, according to federal records.
If convicted on the murder and attempted murder charges, Wedding faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life in federal prison in addition to the continuing criminal enterprise charges.
Category: General Sports
