A key suspect tied in disgraced Olympian Ryan Wedding’s alleged drug empire was nabbed at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Monday, the FBI said.
Wedding — a former ace snowboarder now compared to infamous drug lords Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Pablo Escobar — allegedly worked with Canadian Tommy Demorizi to help track down a federal witness he later murdered.
Demorizi, 35, of Montreal was believed to have been hiding out in the Dominican Republic when a warrant was issued for his arrest late last year.
He was cuffed by FBI and US Customs agents as soon as he touched down at Newark on Monday, authorities said.
Demorizi’s arrest comes just weeks after Wedding, a 44-year-old ex-Olympian, was caught in Mexico and hauled back to the United States to face drug-trafficking and murder charges.
Wedding allegedly turned to a life of crime after representing Canada and coming in 24th in the men’s snowboarding event in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
He moved as much as 60 tons of cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Canada and the US while working under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel, federal prosecutors said.
He also is accused of ordering several drug-related killings, including the slaying of Jonathan Acebedo Garcia — a US government witness slain who was murdered in Colombia in January last year before he could testify against Wedding.
Demorizi allegedly helped track down that witness, the Toronto Star reported.
Wedding is also accused of directing the 2023 killings of two members of a Canadian family in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment, as well a 2024 murder over a drug debt.
The disgraced athlete, who eluded authorities for more than a decade before landing on the FBI’s list of 10 most wanted fugitives, pleaded not guilty during a brief court appearance in California last month.
After Wedding’s capture, FBI Director Kash Patel called him one of “the largest narco traffickers in modern times” and compared him to “El Chapo” and Escobar.