Prosecutors allege Ryan Marriage ceremony, who was arrested in Mexico, behind multibillion-dollar drug trafficking scheme.
Printed On 23 Jan 2026
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly turned a drug kingpin in Mexico.
The company introduced on Friday that 44-year-old Ryan Wedding had been picked up in Mexico Metropolis and dropped at the US on prices of cocaine trafficking and homicide.
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“He’s a modern-day El Chapo. He’s a modern-day Pablo Escobar,” FBI head Kash Patel stated throughout a information convention, referencing Mexican cartel chief Joaquin Guzman and Colombian cartel chief Escobar, respectively.
Patel added that Marriage ceremony had alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, underneath whose safety he was believed to be dwelling in Mexico. He had been hiding within the nation for greater than a decade, with the FBI providing a $15m reward resulting in his arrest.
All informed, Marriage ceremony managed an operation answerable for producing greater than $1bn a yr in unlawful drug proceeds, based on the FBI.
“This particular person and his organisation within the Sinaloa Cartel poured narcotics into the streets of North America and killed too lots of our youth and corrupted too lots of our residents,” he stated, with out offering additional particulars on how Marriage ceremony was captured.
Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles discipline workplace, informed reporters that Marriage ceremony – whose aliases embrace “El Jefe,” “Big” and “Public Enemy” – was anticipated to have an preliminary US courtroom look on Monday.
Davis stated 36 folks related to Marriage ceremony’s alleged drug trafficking ring have been arrested, and belongings price tens of tens of millions of {dollars} have been seized, together with luxurious automobiles, invaluable art work and jewelry.
Past the trafficking prices, authorities additionally accused Marriage ceremony, who competed for Canada within the 2002 Salt Lake Metropolis Olympics in parallel large slalom, of hiring assassins to focus on people he perceived as rivals or regulation enforcement “coordinators”.
In prices filed final yr, prosecutors accused Marriage ceremony of participating within the killing of a witness set to testify in opposition to him. Based on prosecutors, the witness was fatally shot 5 instances after Marriage ceremony put a $5m bounty on his head.
Prosecutors have additionally accused Marriage ceremony of ordering the killing of a driver accused of stealing cocaine. In consequence, a married couple visiting Ontario had been fatally shot, in an obvious case of mistaken identification.
The arrest comes as Mexico has stepped up extraditions of accused cartel members to the US, in what some have seen as an effort to thrust back the Trump administration from conducting army actions within the nation.
The Trump administration, which earlier this month kidnapped Venezuelan chief Nicolas Maduro, has threatened to conduct such operations with or with out Mexico’s approval.
