Olympic snowboarder-turned-drug kingpin Ryan Wedding to appear in California court after arrest in Mexico

Ryan Wedding — the ex-Olympic snowboarder-turned-alleged-drug kingpin — will make his first appearance in an Orange County court after he was arrested in Mexico and flown to California this week.

Wedding is facing multiple federal charges, including running a criminal enterprise, murder and conspiring to distribute cocaine, among other crimes.

The Canadian former Olympian is expected to appear at a federal courthouse in Santa Ana on Monday, authorities said.

Wedding is facing multiple federal charges, including running a criminal enterprise, murder and conspiring to distribute cocaine, among other crimes. AP

Wedding was arrested last week and brought to Southern California on Friday, where he was paraded in handcuffs. The FBI, LAPD, DEA, and Canada’s RCMP held a joint press conference announcing that the accused drug trafficker — formerly one of America’s Most Wanted — was now in custody.

“When you go after a guy like Ryan Wedding, it takes a united front, and that’s what you’re seeing here,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Wedding long had ties to Southern California, where authorities say his alleged drug trafficking operation used Los Angeles as its main U.S. hub. The organization funneled hundreds of kilos of cocaine throughout the SoCal region and on to Canada and other locations across the U.S., federal officials said.

A Canadian citizen, Wedding grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

He was arrested for the first time in California in 2008 and found guilty the following year of conspiring to traffic cocaine, which landed him behind bars in federal prison for four years.

In 2011, a year into his four-year prison sentence, Wedding got married behind bars to an Iranian-born businesswoman from British Columbia, CBC reported.

Wedding is facing multiple federal charges, including running a criminal enterprise, murder and conspiring to distribute cocaine, among other crimes. PA Images via Getty Images

Canadian investigators had been tracking Wedding in his home country since 2015, but after he fled the US Department of Justice joined the effort to find him.

In June 2024, a sealed six-count indictment was filed against Wedding and an associate in Los Angeles federal court, charging them with running a criminal enterprise, committing murder in support of the enterprise and conspiring to distribute and export cocaine.

On Jan. 22, Wedding was taken into custody after he turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.