Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympian turned alleged drug kingpin who has drawn comparisons to Pablo Escobar and El Chapo, was taken into custody after a 17-month pursuit and more than a decade at large, federal authorities announced Friday. In two indictments, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California laid out how Wedding, 44, and his associates allegedly trafficked more than $1 billion in cocaine across the U.S. and Canada and orchestrated multiple murders, including the assassination of a key government witness.
On September 14, Alejandro Carranza, a 42-year-old fisherman, set out to sea from a remote town in La Guajira, Colombia's northernmost province, bordering Venezuela. It was an ordinary fishing trip, in search of tuna and marlin, said Leonardo Vega, a childhood friend and the president of the fishing association Carranza belonged to. But this time, Carranza never returned.
The 15-month investigation began in October 2024 when Policia Nacional officers found 88kg (194lbs) of cocaine in a vehicle in the southern Spanish town of Mijas. The drugs led them to three gangs, including a Balkan cartel, who were working together to bring huge quantities of cocaine into Spain from Colombia. The gangs used the so-called monkey' technique to get the shipments of cocaine into maritime containers that were being transported on container ships, the force said in a statement on Thursday.
The court heard how the defendant helped orchestrate the intrusion of a port operator's computer systems by having a terminal employee insert a USB stick containing malware into a workstation. That single physical act opened the door to months of remote access. Investigators found a backdoor installed in September 2020 that stayed put into the following year, while chats show the defendant exploring the network and hunting for admin access.
Gogic, 46, who remains held without bail at MDC Brooklyn, was set to stand trial on charges in November that he played a key role in an operation that trafficked more than 20 tons of cocaine through U.S. ports. A day before opening statements, though, the trial was thrown into chaos, when prosecutors said they'd learned of a plot to offer a $100,000 bribe to a juror.
