Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin arrested in Mexico : NPR

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Damian Dovarganes/AP WASHINGTON — Ryan Wedding ceremony, a former Olympic snowboarder from Canada who was among the many FBI's prime fugitives and faces costs associated to multinational drug trafficking and the killing of a federal witness, has been arrested in Mexico, prime Justice Division officers mentioned Friday.

Wedding ceremony, 44, is accused of working a drug trafficking operation, and officers say he orchestrated a number of killings to additional the drug crimes. He was on the FBI's Ten Most Wished Fugitives record, and authorities had provided a $15 million reward for info resulting in his arrest and conviction.

U.S. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Wedding ceremony's arrest in social media posts. Patel mentioned Wedding ceremony was being transported to the U.S. after being apprehended Thursday night time in Mexico, the place U.S. authorities imagine the previous Olympian been hiding for greater than a decade.

"It is a large day for a safer North America, and the world," Patel wrote on the social platform X, "and a message that those that break our legal guidelines and hurt our residents can be delivered to justice."

Patel was anticipated to carry a information convention later Friday in California.

Patel held conferences in Mexico on Thursday and left Friday with two detainees, Mexico's Safety Secretary Omar García Harfuch wrote on X. He mentioned the 2 detainees had been a Canadian citizen who turned himself in on the U.S. embassy, in addition to another person who was among the many FBI's most-wanted and had been detained by Mexican authorities.

A member of Mexico's Safety Cupboard, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren't approved to talk publicly, advised The Related Press that Wedding ceremony was the Canadian citizen who turned himself in.

Wedding ceremony competed for his house nation within the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake Metropolis. Olympic data present he participated in a single males's snowboarding occasion, parallel big slalom, ending twenty fourth.

Wedding ceremony was charged in 2024 with working a drug ring that used semitrucks to maneuver cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada. Authorities mentioned his aliases included "El Jefe," "Public Enemy" and "James Conrad Kin."

In November, U.S. Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi introduced that he had additionally been indicted on costs of orchestrating the killing of a witness in Colombia to assist him keep away from extradition to the U.S.

Authorities mentioned Wedding ceremony and co-conspirators used a Canadian web site referred to as "The Soiled Information" to submit {a photograph} of the witness so he may very well be recognized and killed. The witness was then adopted to a restaurant in Medellín in January and shot within the head.

Wedding ceremony faces separate drug trafficking costs in Canada that date again to 2015, based on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Wedding ceremony was beforehand convicted within the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to jail in 2010, federal data present. Federal prosecutors in 2024 mentioned they believed Wedding ceremony, after his launch from jail, had resumed drug trafficking below the safety of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.