Jan 23 (Reuters) – Ryan Wedding, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder suspected of becoming a cocaine smuggling kingpin, has been arrested, NBC News reported on Friday, citing two law enforcement officials familiar with the U.S. investigation.
Wedding, 44, was on the U.S. FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list for allegedly running a transnational drug trafficking network responsible for transporting hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and Canada.
Wedding has been charged with overseeing a criminal enterprise, including by engaging in witness intimidation tactics such as murder, and enriching himself with laundered drug proceeds, the U.S. Department of Justice said in November.
NBC did not say where or how Wedding had been arrested. U.S. and Canadian officials said in November they believed Wedding had been residing in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel.
FBI Director Kash Patel was scheduled to announce a “significant development in a major investigation” at a press conference Friday morning in California alongside Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Michael Duheme and other U.S. law enforcement officials, according to the FBI.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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