FBI arrests ex-Olympian drug ‘kingpin’ who allegedly used crypto to move proceeds

U.S. authorities arrested former Canadian snowboarding star Ryan Wedding on Friday, taking down a suspected drug kingpin they said used cryptocurrency networks to move and launder proceeds from his criminal enterprises.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Wedding a “onetime Olympian snowboarder-turned alleged violent cocaine kingpin,” in a statement, and she said he’s been flown to the U.S. to face charges. Wedding had been on the list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top-10ten wanted fugitives for accusations of cocaine trafficking and murder, and FBI Director Kash Patel said in a posting on social media site X that he’d been captured in Mexico.

Wedding, who the FBI said had been associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in November.

“His criminal organization uses cryptocurrency to move and launder the proceeds of drug trafficking, concealing vast sums of illicit wealth,” the Treasury Department said in that notice.

The 44-year-old had competed for Team Canada in the Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002, finishing 24th in his event that year. The year before, in the Junior World Championships, he’d won a silver medal.