When they slap your face on an FBI Ten Most Wanted poster, you might as well pack your toothbrush and call up the lawyers, because you’re going down.
On Thursday, January 22, Ryan Wedding was arrested in Mexico City.
Thus came to a sudden end the criminal career of the Canadian king of the Mexican cocaine cartels.
And it looks like he’ll spend the rest of his seriously evil life in prison.
“I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway.”
It’s a steep, sudden fall for the one-time Canadian Olympic snowboarder, who, in 2002, finished 24th in the parallel giant slalom. He then left that mountain behind forever, preferring to build a staggering mountain of money by peddling enormous quantities of another kind of “snow.”
Wedding’s training as a career criminal began in 2008 when he was arrested in San Diego and sentenced to 48 months in prison. There, he made connections and learned how to hit the big time as a cocaine dealer.
He told the court at his sentencing: “I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway.… I’ve had an opportunity to see firsthand what drugs do to people, and honestly, I’m ashamed that I became a part of the problem for years.”
That sentiment didn’t last long. Wedding would soon plunge far deeper into crime—faster than he ever raced down an Olympic slope.
Wedding then fled to Mexico, became an associate of the infamous Sinaloa cartel and built a massive, international empire of drug dealing, money laundering and, authorities say, murder.
Authorities estimate that, over the course of 13 years, Wedding was responsible for shipping 60 metric tons of cocaine annually to the US and Canada, destroying thousands of lives in the process, and raking in staggering amounts of illicit cash.
When you’re up to your ears in that kind of dirty money, you’ve got to do something to hide it. So Wedding did, investing in cryptocurrency and buying motorcycles and luxury cars. Now 44, Wedding succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. In December, Mexican police discovered and seized $40 million worth of rare racing motorcycles he owned.
Meanwhile, the FBI has now seized his $13 million 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR Roadster, one of only six ever built.
According to a bill of sale, the vehicle was bought in 2024 by Rolan Sokolovski, a Toronto-area jeweler recently identified by US authorities as one of Wedding’s two “chief money launderers.” There is little doubt he was purchasing the car for Wedding.
Police say Sokolovski handled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency for Wedding.
And like Wedding, he is now in jail.
Also under indictment is Canadian Rasheed Pascua Hossain, who is said to have forwarded $207,808,779 to Wedding in cryptocurrency in 2024.
In connection with the arrests of 36 members of Wedding’s massive operation, authorities turned up 2,300 kilograms of cocaine, 44 kilograms of methamphetamine, 44 kilograms of fentanyl and a whopping $55 million of illicit assets, according to Jim McDonnell, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, one of the agencies involved in pursuing Wedding.
And then, of course, there are the women, drawn to Wedding and his enormous stash of cash. Wedding married Mexican beauty Miryam Andrea Castillo Moreno, 34, who, the US Treasury Department alleges, “launders drug proceeds for Wedding and has helped him conduct acts of violence.”
There was also Daniela Alejandra Acuña Macías, his 23-year-old Colombian girlfriend who received “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from Wedding, authorities say.
And then there is alleged Colombian madam Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, 47, who runs an escort service in Mexico City, and is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering as part of Wedding’s operations.
Finally, let’s not forget Yulieth Katherine Tejada, 36, a “sex worker” who was arrested in Orlando and charged with murder conspiracy and, of course, money laundering at Wedding’s bidding.
“Wedding operates through a complex web of individuals and companies to launder his drug proceeds, using everything from front businesses to luxury cars to cryptocurrency,” said Treasury undersecretary John Hurley at the end of last year.
And then, just like that, it all came crumbling down like a house of cards.
“We told you in November we would find Mr. Wedding, and today that day has arrived.”
The October 2024 indictment against Wedding states he is charged with “running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation that shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, and whose leaders orchestrated multiple murders in furtherance of these drug crimes.”
“When you go after a guy like Ryan Wedding, it takes a united front,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “This was a complex, high-stakes operation with zero margin for error. I was on the ground with our team in Mexico and witnessed extraordinary teamwork, precision and trust between our agents and partners in Mexico.”
“[Wedding] went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco-trafficker in modern times,” Patel added, “and he thought he could evade justice.”
They always do—and it never ends well.
Just like the US government put out a $15 million bounty for information leading to Wedding’s arrest and/or conviction, Wedding put a multimillion-dollar bounty out on a government informant, Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, who was murdered in a Medellín restaurant early last year.
Wedding is also suspected of involvement in the 2023 murders of an Indian couple, Jagtar and Harbhajan Sidhu, mistakenly killed in Ontario over a stolen drug shipment.
Wedding was blatant about his business. He went by the nicknames “El Jefe” (“The Boss” in Spanish) and “Public Enemy”—bestowed on him by the Sinaloa cartel—while running his Mexican drug empire.
Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, told reporters, “We told you in November we would find Mr. Wedding, and today that day has arrived.”
Wedding fits perfectly into the age-old mold of criminals and murderers who thought they were on top of the world and the law couldn’t touch them.
But one by one, they fell—John Dillinger, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Bernie Madoff, Billy the Kid—and never rose again.
Now, it’s Wedding’s turn to face the long arm of the law.
As they sing: “Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you?”
