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The FBI announced the arrest of Ryan Wedding on cocaine trafficking and murder charges. The couple allegedly ran a cross-border drug smuggling operation that relied on digital currencies to transfer and launder the proceeds.
The event represented a continuation of the increasingly relevant role that digital assets, and stablecoin payments in particular, play in facilitating illicit finance.
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The FBI ends a decades-long manhunt
According to the FBI, authorities took Weddings, a 44-year-old former Canadian Olympic skier, into custody Thursday night. The arrest marked a decade-long pursuit of one of the Justice Department’s most wanted men.
Mexican authorities have revealed that the wedding has been moved to the US Embassy in Mexico City.
The arrest came as a result of Wedding’s alleged role in a cross-border drug smuggling operation under a single wing. One of the largest criminal organizations in Mexico. Authorities also said Wedding operated under several aliases, including “El Khife” and “Public Enemy.”
“He ran and participated in a cross-border drug trafficking operation that 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,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post.
In 2024, the FBI announced a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Two months ago, prosecutor Bill Essay revealed in a press conference that Wedding was also responsible for the murder of a witness who was shot five times in the head at a restaurant in Colombia last January.
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The authorities also indicated that the marriage operations It depends on the digital currencies To launder money and transfer profit across borders.
USDT wallets are used to hide returns
According to the indictment, the Wedding Project would hide a significant part of the profits generated from the sale of cocaine with US and Canadian dollars, as well as cryptocurrencies.
The authorities argued that the project was based on an advanced system Rope based To achieve this.
The plan involved splitting large amounts into smaller transactions. These funds were then routed through several intermediary USDT wallets before pooling into a central Tether wallet allegedly controlled by Wedding.
The indictment also revealed that in November 2024, another defendant received approximately 2 million Colombian pesos to pay for the operations. It is said that the pesos were converted from a digital currency as payment for about 300 kilograms of cocaine.
The marriage case is one of many that have come to light recently. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice charged a Venezuelan citizen with allegedly using digital currencies in… Billion dollar money laundering scheme.
At the same time, I arrived Cryptocurrency crimes All-time high in 2025.
According to the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, it received the illicit addresses At least $154 billion last year, which represents an increase of 162% by 2024.
