Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned cocaine smuggling kingpin, has been arrested, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday. The 44-year-old was on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list for allegedly running a drug trafficking network and murdering a witness. He was apprehended in Mexico.
“At my direction, Department of Justice agents @FBI have apprehended yet another member of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List: Ryan Wedding, the onetime Olympian snowboarder-turned alleged violent cocaine kingpin. Wedding was flown to the United States where he will face justice,” Bondi wrote on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
“This is a direct result of President Trump’s law-and-order leadership. Under @POTUS, criminals have no safe harbor. Director Patel has worked tirelessly to bring fugitives to justice. We are grateful to our incredible Ambassador Ron Johnson and the Mexican authorities for assisting us in this case,” the AG added.
It is unclear whether any of Wedding's associates, including his wife, were arrested.
Who is Ryan Wedding's wife and girlfriend?
In November last year, authorities revealed details about Wedding's inner circle. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned several women accused of laundering money, facilitating violence or helping track down a cooperating witness.
{{/usCountry}}In November last year, authorities revealed details about Wedding's inner circle. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned several women accused of laundering money, facilitating violence or helping track down a cooperating witness.
{{/usCountry}}Among them is Wedding’s Colombian girlfriend, Daniela Alejandra Acuña Macías, 23. Officials alleged that she accepted ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ from Wedding while knowing the funds were tied to drug trafficking.
She was not criminally charged and was believed to be in Mexico. She, however, was on the US sanctions list, which freezes any American-based assets and bars US persons from doing business with her.
Wedding’s wife, Miryam Andrea Castillo Moreno, was also briefly swept up in the sanctions action. The 34-year-old Mexican national, whom officials say has been connected to Wedding since at least 2011, married him while he was serving a three-year federal sentence following a 2008 guilty plea in a failed San Diego drug deal involving an undercover FBI operative posing as a former Russian KGB agent.
OFAC initially alleged that ‘Castillo launders drug proceeds for Wedding and has helped him conduct acts of violence’. One day later, however, the Treasury Department reversed course, removing her from the sanctions list and saying there was no evidence tying her to his criminal business.