Ryan Wedding Former Olympic Snowboarder Arrested by FBI as America’s Most Wanted Drug Trafficker

Wedding was first incarcerated in 2008 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where, according to Kalina, he began forging connections and absorbing lessons from seasoned foreign traffickers. “we did hear comments he’d make about meeting interesting people and learning things,” says Kalina,who listened to phone calls Wedding made to the outside world.

After his conviction for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, Wedding was transferred to a federal prison in texas. There, he met the man who would, more than a decade later, help bring about his downfall: Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Colombian-Canadian with deep knowledge of the trade. Upon Wedding’s release in December 2011, the FBI alleges that he formally established his trafficking institution and installed Acebedo-Garcia as one of his most trusted operatives.

Then, in 2024, Acebedo-Garcia appeared to vanish. Within Wedding’s organization, alarm bells whent off. word spread that he had been flipped by the FBI. He earned a new nickname: “the rat.”

According to a US indictment, Wedding’s attorney, Deepak Paradkar—who often operated under the alias “cocaine lawyer”—advised that Wedding’s legal exposure would be far reduced if Acebedo-Garcia could not physically testify. Soon after, prosecutors allege in the indictment, Wedding put a $5 million bounty on his former operative’s head. Paradkar,himself,was arrested in Canada and charged in 2025 for conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to retaliate against a witness after allegedly encouraging Wedding to kill a key witness in his case. He is currently out on bail,awaiting an extradition hearing,and denies any wrongdoing.(Paradkar did not respond to VF’s request for comment).

The message traveled fast and wide: through a professional Canadian poker player and diamond dealer;