Live updates: Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding arrested after a decade on the run

canadian river fleer Ryan wedding party in U.S. Custody

FBI official on allegations against Ryan Wedding, what's next after arrest

Who is Ryan Wedding?

Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding compared to Pablo Escobar

New photos show fugitive Ryan Wedding’s changing appearance

Breaking down Ryan Wedding’s alleged network of organized crime

Ryan Wedding’s path from Olympian to most-wanted fugitive

As mentioned, before today’s arrest, Wedding had spent more than a decade running from authorities while allegedly operating a violent transnational drug-smuggling empire.

He has several descriptive nicknames — El Jefe (The Boss), Giant, Public Enemy and Buddy — and authorities have compared him to Pablo Escobar. 

He was previously charged with running a continuing criminal enterprise, murder, attempted murder and conspiring to possess, distribute and export cocaine. 

For years, Wedding's story has attracted a lot of attention across Canada — and inspired many snow puns. That’s partly because before he was alleged to be trafficking white powder, he was gliding through it as a Canadian Olympian. 

Born to a snow sports family in Ontario, Wedding showed promising talent as a snowboarder early in life. He ultimately competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, where he choked and didn't medal. He quit professional snowboarding soon after — and then transitioned into drug trafficking. 

In 2008, Wedding was arrested during a police sting operation in the U.S. After he tried to purchase 24 kilograms of cocaine to smuggle into Canada. He was convicted the following year and sentenced to 48 months in prison, with time served. During his trial, he reportedly voiced remorse for his actions.

In the years following Wedding's release from prison, he and his associates were allegedly procuring and trafficking cocaine from Colombia into Mexico, the U.S. And Canada. By the end of 2025, he was on the FBI's top 10 most-wanted list, with authorities offering a whopping $15 million US reward in exchange for information leading to his arrest.

Wedding's arrest will resonate with an Indian family whose mother and father were killed in a mistaken-identity shooting in Caledon, Ont., in November 2023.

Jagtar Sidhu and his wife Harbhajan Sidhu were targeted by an unidentified gunman over a stolen cocaine shipment that had passed through southern California. 

Authorities later said the murder had been ordered by Wedding and his alleged second-in-command, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark. Both men are charged with murder in connection with the attack.

The Sidhus' 28-year-old daughter, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, witnessed the rampage and was shot 13 times herself. She survived, but suffered what police called "life-altering injuries."

Wedding will be required to enter a plea when he appears in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Wedding faces a list of charges related to murder and drug trafficking, having been indicted twice by grand juries in California since 2024.

In November, authorities in Canada and Colombia made at least 11 arrests in a co-ordinated takedown of Wedding’s network.

Among those arrested was Carmen Yelinet Valoyes Florez, 47, of Bogotá, Colombia. U.S. Treasury officials identified her as a “Colombian national who runs a high-end prostitution ring in Mexico.”

The Treasury previously said in a statement that Valoyes assisted Wedding with the murder of an FBI witness in January 2025.  

“Valoyes introduced Wedding to his Colombian girlfriend, Daniela Alejandra Acuna Macias,” the Treasury’s statement read. “Acuna has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wedding, whom she knew from the beginning of their relationship to live a lifestyle funded by violent narcotics trafficking. She has assisted Wedding in obtaining information on his rivals.”

It’s unclear where Valoyes has been held in custody.

In its own statement on Wedding's arrest, the RCMP said, "This is a great day for public safety in Canada" and a success for international co-operation between law enforcement officials.

"The RCMP collaborated closely with the FBI throughout the investigation, in Canada and around the world. We extend our heartfelt congratulations to the FBI on their leadership of this investigation and thank them for their collaboration," read a statement from RCMP Comm. Michael Duheme.

Mexico's Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Omar Harfuch, the country’s top civilian security official, spent about an hour and a half this morning on a stage with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum during a morning news conference in the Gulf state of Veracruz. 

The news that Ryan Wedding was in U.S. Custody broke during the news conference.

Harfuch did not mention anything about the Wedding case during the event, and no journalists asked any questions on the subject.

At about 9:30 a.m. ET, Harfuch's office sent out a news release and posted a statement on X announcing that a "Canadian" had turned himself in to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Thursday. The information was buried at the bottom of a statement about a meeting between FBI head Kash Patel, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and Mexican security officials that was also held Thursday.

FBI official on allegations against Ryan Wedding, what's next after arrest

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, outlined some of the allegations against accused drug trafficker Ryan Wedding, some of the work that went into tracking him down — and what comes next in the case against the former Canadian Olympian.

During today's intelligence group discussion, Patel touted Wedding's hitch as the 6th entrance from the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives list in a year.

Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI's L.A. Field office, later said it's also the 500th capture since the list's inception 75 years ago — an anniversary marked last year.

Also on board the plane that carried Wedding back to the U.S. From Mexico was a fellow top 10 most-wanted fugitive, Alejandro (Alex) Rosales Castillo, wanted in the alleged 2016 murder of his 23-year-old co-worker, who was found dead in a wooded area near Charlotte, N.C.

That arrest had previously been announced on Saturday.

It's a "new era," Pistole said.

"Thank god we have a president who backs the blue," Patel told reporters. (The blue represents police or law enforcement.) 

It was one of several comments that Patel made about U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration. Throughout the presser, Patel repeatedly praised Trump and framed Wedding's arrest as a political success. 

Notably, Patel also referred to the FBI plane that was parked behind him. The FBI director has faced hefty criticism for using the FBI jet excessively, but today he nodded at the ways it's being used in the manhunt against Wedding and his associates. There's still little clarity around Patel's use of the jet, though.

Patel also used the news conference to praise the Trump administration, calling Wedding's arrest a "great operation that came together through inter-agency success." 

"No one behind me and to the side of me cares about credit; they care about putting away the bad guys and safeguarding our communities," Patel said. "That is the leadership that President Trump brought to the presidency. That is the support that he has brought to law enforcement from coast to coast."

Patel noted that six of the 10 most-wanted FBI fugitives were captured in one year — two more than during "the entirety of the prior administration," according to the FBI director. 

The manhunt targeting Ryan Wedding came to pass through collaborations between several law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the RCMP. 

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said that, in addition to Wedding's arrest, the collective effort led to the seizure of massive amounts of cocaine, methamphetamines, firearms and some $55 million US in illicit assets.

Officials have spent a lot of time thanking each other during this news conference, with RCMP and U.S. Law enforcement agencies praising each other for the arrest.

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