• FBI arrested ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding in Mexico, ending cocaine trafficking manhunt.
• Indictment says Wedding used crypto and USDT wallets to split and conceal proceeds.
• Chainalysis reports illicit crypto flows hit $154 billion in 2025, up 162% year over.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrest of Ryan Wedding on charges of cocaine trafficking and murder. Wedding allegedly ran a transnational drug trafficking operation that relied on cryptocurrency to move and launder the proceeds. 

The event marked the continuation of the increasingly relevant role that digital assets, and stablecoin payments, in particular, play in facilitating illicit finance.

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FBI Ends Decade-Long Manhunt

According to the FBI, authorities took Wedding, a 44-year-old former Canadian Olympic snowboarder, into custody on Thursday night. The arrest marked a decade-long manhunt of one of the Department of Justice’s most wanted fugitives. 

Wedding reportedly turned himself in at the United States embassy in Mexico City, revealed Mexican authorities.

The arrest stemmed from Wedding’s alleged role in a transnational drug trafficking operation under the wing of one of Mexico’s biggest criminal organizations. Authorities also alleged Wedding operated under several pseudonyms, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy.”

“He was allegedly running and participating in a transnational drug trafficking operation that routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California to the United States and Canada – as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a social media post. 

In 2024, the FBI announced a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture. 

Two months ago, leading prosecutor Bill Essayli unveiled in a press conference that Wedding was also responsible for the murder of a witness who was shot five times in the head in a restaurant in Colombia last January. 

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Authorities also highlighted that Wedding’s operations relied on cryptocurrencies to launder money and move proceeds across borders.

USDT Wallets Used to Obscure Proceeds

According to the indictment, Wedding’s enterprise would conceal a significant amount of the earnings made through cocaine sales using US and Canadian dollars, as well as cryptocurrencies. 

Authorities argued that the enterprise relied on a sophisticated Tether-based system to do so. 

The scheme involved splitting large sums into smaller transactions. These funds were then routed through multiple intermediary USDT wallets before converging in a central Tether wallet allegedly controlled by Wedding.

The indictment also revealed that in November 2024, another defendant received around 2 million Colombian pesos to advance operations. The pesos had allegedly been converted from cryptocurrency as payment for roughly 300 kilograms of cocaine. 

Wedding’s case is just one of several others that have surfaced recently. Earlier this month, the DOJ charged a Venezuelan national for allegedly using crypto in a $1 billion money laundering scheme.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency crime reached an all-time high in 2025. 

According to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, illicit addresses received at least $154 billion last year, representing a 162% increase from 2024. 

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