Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder turned fugitive, entered a not guilty plea to two indictments in federal court on Monday. Wedding, 44, was apprehended in Mexico City last week and transported to Southern California. This arrest followed a year-long international effort involving authorities from the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. He faces multiple charges related to drug conspiracy and four counts of murder and attempted murder, all linked to his alleged leadership role in a billion-dollar international drug trafficking operation. Appearing in court in Santa Ana, California, Wedding, dressed in a jail jumpsuit and shackled, briefly smiled before consulting with his attorney. When questioned by U.S. Magistrate John D. Early about the indictments, Wedding confirmed, “I’ve read them both, yes.”

The judge ordered Wedding to remain in custody, citing the inability to immediately establish conditions that would ensure public safety or guarantee his court appearance. However, bond consideration remains a possibility if Wedding seeks it in the future. The trial is scheduled to commence on March 24 in downtown Los Angeles, with a status conference set for February 11. Wedding has been a target of the FBI for his alleged involvement in a transnational drug ring, reportedly smuggling around 60 metric tons of cocaine into Southern California annually. Allegedly protected by Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel for nearly a decade, Wedding has been likened by FBI director Kash Patel to Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the cartel’s notorious former leader.

Outside the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding’s defense attorney, Anthony Colombo, refuted claims that his client voluntarily surrendered in Mexico, asserting instead that Wedding was residing there, not evading capture. “He was arrested,” Colombo stated, declining to provide additional details. “He did not surrender.” Colombo mentioned that Wedding is in “good spirits” but acknowledged the upheaval of recent events. Federal prosecutors offered no comments following the court proceedings. In the past, Wedding served 3 1/2 years of a four-year sentence in the U.S. for cocaine distribution. In 2024, he faced eight felony charges, including three counts of murder. Last November, a grand jury indictment unveiled charges against Wedding for the murder of a federal witness set to testify against him.

The FBI had recently upped its reward for information on Wedding to $15 million after the snowboarder spent close to a decade on the run. It is unclear if that money will be awarded to anyone, seeing as Wedding reportedly turned himself in. Patel declined to go into further detail about the government’s pursuit of Wedding on Friday, saying he wanted to ‘safeguard’ the investigation. ‘It goes without saying to go down to Mexico to find a guy who’s been on the lam for multiple years for some of the most egregious crimes on planet Earth, takes an inter agency-wide effort led out by President [Donald] Trump, our DOJ and our partners in Mexico, and [we are] very grateful for that partnership,’ Patel told reporters following Wedding’s arrest on Friday in California. The FBI Director also thanked Mexico for its cooperation in taking down Wedding, as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

He went on to credit US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald D. Johnson for ‘quarterbacking’ this case over the last year. A native of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Wedding became a competitive snowboarder as a teenager in British Columbia before going on to compete at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where he finished 24th in the men’s parallel giant slalom. The pursuit of Wedding had been gathering momentum for some time. A month ago, the FBI released never-before-seen photos of a $40 million seizure of vehicles believed to be owned by Wedding. Among the items seized were 62 motorbikes, as well as a rare, $13 million 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR Roadster. While not verified, speculation on social media claimed that some of the motorbikes have a famous history, potentially even being ridden by Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez in MotoGP.

Also in the recent haul, FBI agents found two other vehicles, two Olympic medals, methamphetamine, marijuana, works of art, and ammunition. It is not clear who the medals belong to, given Wedding finished 24th in the parallel giant slalom at his sole Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. The US Treasury Department claimed Wedding has built a ‘complex web’ of assets to hide his wealth, using luxury cars, motorcycles, properties, cryptocurrency and front businesses.’ Authorities have also said there was ‘some evidence’ Wedding had undergone cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance and further evade detection. In November, Patel said Wedding was responsible for ‘engineering a narco trafficking and narco terrorism program that we have not seen in a long time.’ He and his alleged accomplices used California stash houses and semitrucks to move tons of cocaine and fentanyl through North America, according to authorities.

That network was previously described by Bondi as ‘one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in the world.’ Earlier this month, the FBI added an alleged Wedding accomplice, Bianca Canastillo-Madrid, to its ‘Wanted’ list. She was subject of a federal arrest warrant after being charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to export cocaine and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments He was further accused of partnering with Iranian and Russian cocaine smugglers and in 2010, was convicted of trying to buy the drug from an undercover U.S. government agent. He was sentenced to four years in prison, given credit for time served and released in late 2011. In 2024, Wedding was charged as part of the US government’s Operation Giant Slalom for murder and leading a cocaine trafficking cartel.

Along with his alleged accomplice Andrew Clark, Wedding is alleged to have ordered the murders of married couple Jagtar Sidhu, 57, and Harbhajan Sidhu, 55, in November of 2023 as well as 39-year-old Mohammed Zafar in May of 2024 and a federal witness in Colombia in January of 2025. The Sidhus were believed to have been killed over a stolen shipment of drugs, although Ontario Provincial Police Detective-Inspector Brian McDermott said in 2024 the assassins ‘shot the wrong people.’ Their daughter, Jaspreet Kaur Sidhu, 28, was also shot 13 times in the attack, but survived. ‘My father was shot in front of me,’ she told CBS News in 2024. ‘I heard my mother’s last screams. After that, there was complete silence. Only the noises of gunshots.’ Clark was previously arrested in Mexico in 2024 and extradited to the United States. He’s pleaded not guilty to four murders in Ontario, Canada.