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From competing for Team Canada in the 2002 Olympics to gracing the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list, Ryan Wedding has finally been arrested and charged for a litany of crimes, making him one of the most famous athletes turned crime bosses of all time. After years of investigation, Ryan Wedding was arrested on January 22 in Mexico for drug trafficking and murder charges. According to prosecutors and FBI Director Kash Patel, Wedding is a modern-day Escobar and is reportedly the primary cocaine distributor in Canada. Wedding has been in the drug trafficking business since at least 2006, and he made the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted list in 2025.

The Ryan Wedding story

Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Ryan Wedding started snowboarding seriously at the age of 12 after moving to Coquitlam, British Columbia. The grandson of the owner of a ski resort, Ryan had plenty of opportunity to hit the slopes, and Wedding was an obsessed child, spending hours mastering his craft at a young age. After winning bronze and silver medals at the 1999 and 2001 Junior World Championships, Wedding would join Team Canada for the 2002 Olympics. Wedding competed in snowboarding men’s parallel giant slalom, where he finished 24^th. Wedding would give up his career in snowboarding after the disappointing result.

Starting ‘naturally‘

After his career in snowboarding came to an end after the 2002 Olympics, Wedding became an avid weightlifter and attended Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. After two years of university, he dropped out. Wedding ended up involved with a marijuana grow operation being run out of Eighteen Carrot Farms. In 2006, the RCMP raided the property, seizing a reported $10 million worth of cannabis. Wedding was not in the country at the time of the raid, and avoided police questioning entirely. Two years later, in 2008, Wedding was arrested in an FBI sting operation after attempting to buy 24 kilograms of cocaine from an undercover informant. Wedding was reportedly planning to smuggle the cocaine into Canada for sale.

Wedding was convicted and spent 24 months in jail for the crime, just half of the 48 months he was sentenced. Wedding moved back to Canada after his release from U.S. prison in 2011. While living in Montreal in 2015, Wedding was targeted in another sting operation, this time in regards to ties with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel – one of the most infamous cartels in the world. Police seized more than 200 kilograms of cocaine, and Wedding had reportedly imported $750 million in drugs from the Sinaloa cartel. Unfortunately for prosecutors, when the RCMP executed its operation, Wedding was gone, disappearing before police could arrest him.

Ten years on the run

Ryan Wedding spent the next decade on the run from both Canadian and American operatives. According to court documents released, the ‘Wedding Criminal Enterprise’ as they called it spent the next decade trafficking cocaine from Mexico into Canada and the United States via the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel reportedly smuggled $1 billion USD in cocaine every year, and procured these profits through the use of violence. Weddings criminal enterprise was willing to kill anybody who was perceived to be a threat to the enterprise. Wedding reportedly arranged the killing of multiple members of an Ontario family in 2023, alongside another in 2024. The 2023 killings ended up being a ‘mistake’ according to court documents, with Wedding believing the victims were involved in the robbery of a drug shipment.

Police close in

In 2024, U.S. police were making headway on the ‘Wedding Criminal Enterprise’ case, injecting undercover operatives into the enterprise, and making consistent arrests and seizures in the U.S. and Canada. In June 2024, U.S. prosecutors had a strong enough case to announce charges against Wedding. Wedding was charged with running a continuing criminal enterprise; committing murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and assorted drug crimes; and conspiring to possess, distribute, and export cocaine. Months later, the FBI released a list including 16 members of Wedding’s enterprise and announced that 13 of the members were already in custody.

According to court documents, one of Wedding’s former associates, Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, put the arrests in motion, becoming an undercover government informant. Wedding reportedly found out about Acebedo-Garcia’s cooperation with the police, and subsequently had Acebedo-Garcia killed in Colombia in January of 2025. After Acebedo-Garcia was slain, the FBI placed Ryan Wedding on its top ten most-wanted fugitives list. The FBI raised the reward for Wedding’s capture from $50,000 USD to $10 million, and then to $15 million in November, after another series of arrests were made, but Wedding escaped capture.

Wedding arrested in Mexico

On January 22, 2026, FBI director Kash Patel announced that Ryan Wedding had been arrested in Mexico, where he had been hiding for the last decade. According to Patel, Wedding had been living under the protection of the Sinaloa cartel and had been routinely shipping hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California to the United States and Canada. From an Olympic snowboarder to a drug kingpin known as ‘El-Jefe’ and ‘Giant’, Wedding now faces life in prison for his crimes. Wedding is also facing charges in Canada, meaning it will have to work alongside U.S. prosecutors to bring Wedding to justice.

The heads of all 27 European Union member states gathered in Brussels on January 22 to hold an emergency meeting regarding Trump’s continued verbal threats to annex Greenland. Trump has been continually making it known that he wants to own Greenland, a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark. With the World Economic Forum at Davos wrapping up on January 23, Donald Trump spent more than an hour addressing the summit during his time there. Trump flip-flopped between threatening multiple sovereign nations and claiming that he would not use military force to annex the country, despite what he had threatened before.

Trump wants Greenland

Trump’s desire to own Greenland is slightly confusing. He has frequently devalued the nation, calling it ‘a block of ice’ among other slights. At the same time, Trump has been making his wishes to own Greenland clear during his second term, and his speech at Davos confirmed that he is not willing to let the topic go. Trump announced that he had successfully argued for a framework of a deal related to Greenland, but the deal does not appear to give America control over Greenland. The deal involves multiple countries working together to ensure the Arctic is protected from external threats and reportedly gives Trump control over some Greenlandic minerals. As of January 23, there is no official deal in writing. All public information on the deal has been released by NATO representatives to the media.

Framework of a deal

While the exact details of the deal are far from being released, Donald Trump and multiple NATO spokespersons have commented on different aspects of the deal. According to reports, Denmark would retain control of Greenland, but the deal will also include provisions giving the U.S. access to Greenland’s natural resources, including rare-earth minerals. The deal also outlines increasing security in the Arctic against countries like China and Russia. Trump also mentioned that the deal will progress his plan for a ‘Golden Dome’ in the U.S., an advanced missile defence system based on Israel’s Golden Dome. According to Trump, his interests lie in ensuring Greenland lasts for ‘infinity’.

Emergency meeting in Greenland

On January 22, the heads of all 27 European Union member states gathered in Brussels to hold an emergency meeting regarding Greenland. The meeting was held to ensure unity around the principles of international law and national sovereignty and to secure unity in full support and solidarity with Denmark and Greenland. The meeting was focused on finding a way to appease Donald Trump’s wishes while securing Greenland’s self-governance and Denmark’s control over the nation. According to a European Council spokesperson, Trump’s desire to secure Greenland from external forces is aligned with Greenland and Denmark’s wishes, but Trump’s desire to control large swaths of Greenland’s economy hasn’t gone over well in Europe. European Council President Antonio Costa claimed that the European Council is seriously worried about Trump’s use of both aggressive and retaliatory tariffs on countries that don’t align with his views. According to Costa, the European Council will be working with Trump in the coming weeks to try to come to a solution that appeases the President while protecting Greenland.

Donald Trump has withdrawn an invitation extended to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join what he has described as the «Board of Peace», an initiative presented as focusing on peace efforts and the reconstruction of Gaza, but which remains loosely defined despite being framed as an elite forum of global leaders. The decision came days after both men attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, held from 20 to 24 January, where Carney delivered a widely praised speech emphasising multilateral cooperation and collective responsibility. Trump’s move to revoke the invitation highlighted the growing divide between his transactional approach to international affairs and the vision articulated by Carney on the global stage.

Donald Trump has expanded controversy around his proposed «Board of Peace», an initiative he has presented as being focused on peace efforts and the reconstruction of Gaza, while promoting it as «what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time» and claiming it would include a permanent seat priced at one billion dollars. In a Truth Social post beginning with «Dear Prime Minister Carney», Trump announced that «the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining», publicly singling out the Canadian leader after his acclaimed Davos speech. Trump and his allies have said that several countries agreed in principle to take part, citing Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Morocco, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Israel. At the same time, Russia has been reported to be contemplating the purchase of a permanent seat, with Vladimir Putin saying he could provide one billion dollars from US-based assets frozen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By contrast, several NATO and European countries have distanced themselves from the initiative, deepening skepticism among diplomats over the credibility and intent of the proposed «Board of Peace».

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mark Carney delivered a high-profile address widely interpreted as a direct and immediate reaction to the way Donald Trump has governed since returning to the White House. Speaking against the backdrop of growing geopolitical fragmentation, Carney argued that the post-war, rules-based international order is undergoing a structural breakdown, with power increasingly used as a tool of coercion rather than cooperation. He warned that deep economic integration no longer guarantees stability and can instead expose countries to strategic pressure. Framing his remarks as a call to action for middle powers, Carney urged nations such as Canada to strengthen strategic autonomy, deepen cooperation with like-minded partners and reinforce domestic resilience. His speech emphasised both principled cooperation and pragmatic action, calling for diversified partnerships and stronger national foundations in an increasingly unstable global landscape.

Mark Carney’s address in Davos appeared to strike a nerve with Donald Trump, coming into sharp contrast with the tone and substance of the US president’s own speech at the World Economic Forum. While Carney called for upholding a rules-based global order, strengthening alliances and embracing collective action in the face of mounting geopolitical instability, Trump delivered a combative, nationalist-oriented address centred on national sovereignty, transactional diplomacy and economic leverage. He used his appearance to tout America’s economic performance, trade policy and energy leadership, while signalling a readiness to deploy tariffs and pressure in dealings with European partners. Trump also focused on asserting US strategic interests, notably taking a controversial stance on Greenland, which he described as territory that «only the United States can defend», a remark that drew criticism from European leaders and NATO allies and underscored the widening gap between the two visions presented in Davos.