{"id":149217,"date":"2026-01-25T19:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149217\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T19:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:33:24","slug":"olympian-ryan-wedding-captured-after-decade-long-manhunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149217\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympian Ryan Wedding Captured After Decade-Long Manhunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Los Angeles is safer,\u201d LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said of Ryan Wedding\u2019s arrest Thursday night in Mexico City, ending a manhunt that involved investigators from multiple countries and agencies <\/p>\n

Olympian Ryan Wedding \u2013 accused of sitting at the helm of a murderous transnational narcotics empire \u2013 has been on the run for more than a decade with a phalanx of international investigators on his tail and a $15 million U.S. bounty on his head.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night Wedding \u2013 accused of a slew of violent crimes, including orchestrating last year\u2019s assassination of a witness against his drug empire in Medell\u00edn, Colombia, an assassination detailed by Los Angeles in the January issue \u2013 was captured in Mexico City, FBI Director Kash Patel announced. Patel called Wedding \u201cthe largest narco trafficker of modern times\u201d at a press conference at Ontario International Airport, where the accused kingpin landed Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Wedding turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, two law enforcement sources told Los Angeles, a move that came after international agencies turned the heat up on his network, arresting 36 associates and seizing his prized possessions. <\/p>\n

At a press conference at the airport, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI\u2019s Los Angeles field office, Akil Davis, detailed the \u201cmassive manhunt\u201d that went into tracking Wedding. \u201cWe seized a mountain of drugs, cash, weapons,\u201d Davis said while flanked by Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell, whose detectives were among the phalanx of investigators dedicated to finding Wedding. McDonnell said<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a coordinated, intelligence based effort,\u201d McDonnell said. \u201cWe have disrupted a major narcotics pipeline\u2026Los Angeles is safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ryan\"RyanCredit: FBI<\/p>\n

Wedding is accused of moving 60 metric tons of cocaine through a sophisticated network of Los Angeles area safe houses before the drugs were transported into Canada. As he built his purported empire, Wedding picked up several monikers, among them Giant, el Jefe, Public Enemy and Buddy \u2014 and authorities compared him to Pablo Escobar last March when the FBI announced that it was upping its reward for information leading to his capture to $15 million.<\/p>\n

To maintain control of his empire, which he started, federal prosecutors say, immediately upon his release from a U.S. federal prison after serving a short stint for a 2008 San Diego drug bust, Wedding allegedly used a team of sicarios to take out anyone who got in his way, federal prosecutors say. Wedding\u2019s beginnings in the drug trade and his network\u2019s ties to L.A. were featured in a long-form story in Los Angeles last spring.<\/a><\/p>\n

Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been listed as one of the FBI\u2019s 10 most-wanted fugitives since March 2025, with the U.S. State Department offering a $15-million US reward for information leading to his arrest. In recent months, investigators have hit Wedding where it hurts, seizing his rare $14 million Mercedes-Benz Roadster and a $40 million collection of MotoGP racing bikes<\/a> in a series of raids in Mexico. Wedding\u2019s Olympic medals, <\/a>earned while the skilled snowboarder competed for Team Canada in the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City, were also recovered as investigators rounded up his associates late last year.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Ryan Wedding had a coterie of unusual alleged criminal compatriots around himCredit: Graphic by Lisa Lewis<\/p>\n

In November, U.S. officials announced a slew of Wedding associates had been arrested in connection with a sophisticated hit that played out like a Hollywood movie at a restaurant inside a Medell\u00edn strip mall. The target: Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Colombian native who met Wedding in a Texas prison, and quickly became part of the coterie of purported traffickers around the Olympian when they were both released. <\/p>\n

Acebedo-Garcia had been there since the beginning, they say, and knew everything about how the operation worked, from the cocaine laboratories protected by paramilitary groups in Colombia, to the transport routes through Mexico and the stash houses in L.A. where the drugs were secreted before being trucked into Canada. He was believed to have been privy to the encrypted conversations between Wedding and his\u00a0accused top lieutenant, Andrew Clark.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, he was spilling his guts, which, according to a federal indictment, was information served up to Wedding and Clark by a Canadian criminal defense attorney on their payroll \u2014 a flashy lawyer named Deepak\u00a0Paradkar, one who also earned a couple of underworld monikers, according to federal prosecutors: \u201cCocaine Lawyer\u201d and \u201cDescartes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawyer, along with women who helped lure the Acebo-Garcia out of hiding, were arrested in November. On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel, along with his boss Pam Bondi, announced Wedding\u2019s capture on social media. Patel is expected to join officials with the Royal Canadian Mounties on Friday for a press conference to release details.<\/p>\n

FBI’s Top Ten Fugitive Ryan Wedding apprehended in Mexico and returned to the United States. #Captured<\/a>@LAPDHQ<\/a> @RCMPGRCPolice<\/a> @DEA<\/a> @USAO_LosAngeles<\/a>
https:\/\/t.co\/jYSKIggYq5<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 FBI Los Angeles (@FBILosAngeles) January 23, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n

Wedding sits atop a federal indictment in California\u2019s Central District. He is expected to make his initial appearance in a DTLA federal courtroom on Monday, Davis said.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Stay tuned to lamag.com for new details as they emerge. <\/p>\n