Extremely Rare $13M Car Seized In Probe Of Olympian Turned Drug Kingpin: FBI

LOS ANGELES — The FBI recently announced the seizure of a $13 million Mercedes in connection with an investigation into Olympic snowboarder turned drug kingpin Ryan Wedding.

The bureau’s Los Angeles Field office announced the seizure of the 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR on Nov. 24. The vehicle is one of only six ever built, Autoblog reported.

Wedding, who represented Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, is among the FBI’s ten most-wanted fugitives, according to the agency, and is the subject of a $15 million bounty.

“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a news release, noting his operation has trafficked 60 metric tons of cocaine per year and was responsible for over $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds. “He is the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.”

The 44-year-old works with the Sinaloa Cartel and is believed to live in Mexico, according to the FBI, which reported he is accused in recent indictments of ordering the murder of a federal witness before he could testify against Wedding. Wedding’s attorney, Deepak Paradkar, was arrested Nov. 19 in Canada along with six others after he recommended that Wedding have the witness killed, the FBI reported.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned Wedding and his close associates, cutting them off from their financial accounts in the U.S., according to the FBI.