Suspected drug lord Ryan Wedding sought a restraining order last year, legal documents say
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Longtime fugitive Ryan Wedding sought a court order to prevent his arrest in Mexico’s Sinaloa state nearly a year before he was arrested in the US last week, according to legal records obtained by CBC News.
The documents, first reported by the Sinaloan news agency Riodoce, suggest that Mishado – a Canadian accused of leading a cocaine-trafficking network linked to the Sinaloa cartel – believes Mexican authorities were closing in on him as early as 2025.
In the Mexican federal court that filed the request in mid-February, WednesdayDing swore under oath that federal law enforcement had obtained a warrant for his arrest and extradition. He said at the time he was living in Los Mochis, a city on the west coast of Sinaloa.
This was revealed a few days after the FBI wanted the marriage, following the killing of a witness who was going to testify about him.
Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a longtime drug trafficker born in Montreal, was shits in Medellin, Colombia, on Jan. 31, after Wedding was accused of placing a $5 million US bounty on his head.
Marriage, 44, was taken into custody in the United States in Mexico last week and taken to California, where he faces 17 charges, including murder, drug trafficking, witness tampering and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty.
CBC News reviewed the decision of November 4, 2025, of a federal judge in Sinaloa, which said that it did not have jurisdiction over the legal marriage request – known as amparo – because the arrest warrant was issued in Mexico City.
The slightly amended resolution seen by CBC does not mention marriage and leaves a home address in Los Mochis. However, the Mexican court docket lists the plaintiff in the case by his full name, Ryan James Wedding.
His California-based lawyer Anthony Colombo told CBC News by email that he is aware of the 2025 court case. “The use of amparo is common in Mexico to suppress an arrest warrant that was issued,” Colombo said.
Mexican juThe dge’s decision states that Sinaloa’s director of public security initially admitted to seeking an arrest warrant, but later denied doing so.
“At first he agreed [the claim] because if he finds or runs to the complainant during his work, he will detain him, but make it clear that he does not hold the order of detention for the purposes of revenge,” wrote District Judge Jesús Adalberto Bañuelos Flores.
Cartel expert Nathan P. Jones said in the debate that it’s “a classic narco tactic” to use the Mexican legal system to slow down court proceedings.
Jones, who is a professor of security studies at Sam Houston State University in Texas, said it is unlikely that the couple lived at the address he provided.
Olympic snowboarder-turned-suspect drug kingpin Ryan Wedding has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges during his first court appearance in Santa Ana, California, while uncertainty surrounds whether Wedding was eventually arrested by police.
‘Life’ in Mexico under cartel protection
The FBI added Wedding to its list of 10 most wanted fugitives last March. The agency’s director Kash Patel described the couple this week as “the biggest drug trafficker of modern times” and compared him to drug lords Pablo Escobar and Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán Loera.
The FBI said the former Olympic snowboarder was protected by the Sinaloa gang, which was co-founded by El Chapo.
While reporting from Sinaloa last month, CBC’s Jorge Barrera was told by Mexico’s national guard in the state that the wedding was not on their radar.
Mexican security expert later he told Barrera that the Wedding was tied exclusively to Los Chapitos, a cartel still controlled by those loyal to El Chapo’s sons.
The RCMP began searching for the arrest of the couple in Montreal during an investigation into the large-scale importation of cocaine into Canada in 2015. US authorities now sayin Thunder Bay, Ont., native had they have been hiding in Mexico ever since.
Colombo denied that his client had spent ten years in hiding.
“I would describe it as ‘life’ [in Mexico],” Colombo told reporters this week following his client’s accusations.
The FBI and the Sinaloa attorney general’s office did not immediately return requests for comment on the 2025 marriage ban.
Mexico’s Attorney General Ernestina Godoy Ramos said in a statement this week that the marriage is a “top-tier logistics operator” connected to the Sinaloa cartel, and has served as “an important bridge for the distribution of drugs in North America.”
The Los Angeles Police Department previously said the Marriage network uses hidden houses in the area to move 60 tons of cocaine and fentanyl a year to other locations in the US and Canada.
The RCMP said the arrest of the couple last week marked “an important day for public safety in Canada.”
