The Big Story After 10 years on the run, Ryan Wedding is finally behind bars
Jan 26, 2026
Calvi Leon, Toronto Star crime reporter who covered the Ryan Wedding investigation and organized-crime networks, walks through the saga. He outlines Wedding’s leap from 2002 Olympic snowboarder to alleged drug kingpin. He discusses cartel links, conflicting accounts of the arrest, motives for surrender, political spin at the press conference, and looming legal questions.
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From Olympian To Early Criminal Runs
- Ryan Wedding's criminal path began soon after his Olympic years with an RCMP search for a massive cannabis grow and a later cocaine buy in California.
- He served U.S. prison time, was deported to Canada, and rebuilt criminal ties in Montreal that investigators later linked to cartel networks.
Operation Harrington Revealed Cross-Border Links
- Operation Harrington tied Wedding to cocaine pipelines from Mexico and Colombia into Canada and flagged Sinaloa cartel links.
- Investigations showed this was a multinational probe with RCMP and FBI collaboration leading to a decade-long manhunt in Mexico.
Conflicting Accounts Of The Arrest
- Official accounts of Wedding's arrest conflicted: Mexican and U.S. officials said he surrendered while Kash Patel described a high-stakes operation.
- Calvi Leon suggests both could be true: he may have been surrounded and chose not to resist when taken into custody.