Ryan Wedding paid $100,000 a month for cartel police intel, US says
US prosecutors say the Olympian-turned-alleged drug boss paid a cartel figure a $500,000 entry fee and $100,000 a month for police intelligence.
Ryan Wedding, the former Canadian Olympic snowboarder accused of running a cocaine empire, paid a Mexican cartel figure about $100,000 a month for a feed of police intelligence, according to a new US indictment reported by the Los Angeles Times and the Toronto Star this week. His name was among the top Google searches in the US.
The “subscription” prosecutors describe
The indictment says Edgar Aaron Vazquez Alvarado charged a one-time entry fee of $500,000 and then an average of $100,000 a month. In return, prosecutors say, Wedding got regular updates on arrests, outstanding warrants and active investigations, the sort of information that helps a fugitive stay ahead of the police. Vazquez was later shot dead in a gunfight with Mexican police, according to reports. Separately, Yahoo News Canada reported US allegations that a slain cartel boss known as “The General” gave Wedding a fake police ID.
The Los Angeles Times said prosecutors also charged a fugitive gang member they accuse of helping Wedding run the network and avoid arrest. A Los Angeles man, Roberto Gomez, was separately charged with trying to broker the sale of about 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine to Wedding for roughly $550,000 in cryptocurrency, according to NBC Los Angeles.
Who is Ryan Wedding?
Wedding rode for Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. US authorities later accused him of running a huge cocaine-trafficking network from Mexico, and he was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. He was arrested in January 2026, CNN reported, and brought to the US.
He faces charges including drug trafficking, money laundering, witness tampering and murder, the last linked to the killing of a federal witness. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder and drug-trafficking charges. His trial has been postponed, largely because of the size and complexity of the case.
Why it matters
The new filings show how prosecutors plan to argue that Wedding stayed free for so long: not just by hiding, but by paying for inside information. Every claim in the indictment is an allegation until proven in court. The next step is a new trial date, which the court has not yet set.
