Federal agents in Los Angeles recently seized an ultra-rare 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadster. Only six of these vehicles were ever built, and the car is valued at about $13 million. The seizure is part of a crackdown on assets linked to Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder suspected of leading a large drug operation and on the run. The FBI announced on November 25, 2025, that the car had been purchased with proceeds from fentanyl and cocaine trafficking.
A tweet from X.
Wedding is now 44. In his earlier days, he was known for shredding the halfpipe for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He didn’t win a medal, but he gave it his best effort. By the mid-2000s, authorities alleged he had left the slopes for involvement in the smuggling trade. FBI Director Kash Patel stated bluntly in a news release that
“Wedding is like a modern Pablo Escobar,”
Drawing a comparison to major drug lords such as El Chapo Guzmán.
His trouble with the law kicked off in 2008 when he got busted trying to haul over 100 kilos of coke across the California border. He did stints in lockups from San Diego to Texas and even up in Canada, getting out around 2011. From there, prosecutors say he ramped up a huge network raking in over a billion bucks a year, moving about 60 metric tons of cocaine annually, all thanks to connections with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.
The whole investigation, cheekily named Operation Giant Slalom nodding to his snowboarding past involves the FBI, DEA, DOJ, Treasury, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. On November 18, 2025, the Treasury slapped sanctions on Wedding and 10 of his crew under the Kingpin Act. Then, a week later, they rounded up those folks a mix of Canadians, one from Florida, and some Colombians. They’re looking at charges for drug trafficking conspiracies, laundering cash through crypto and fake businesses, messing with witnesses, and even murders. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi didn’t mince words, calling it “one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in the world.” And First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli piled on:
“If convicted, you will never see the outside of a prison ever again.”
The story’s blowing up online too. Over on X, accounts like @truclip and @mymixtapez posted about the car seizure, racking up thousands of likes and shares. Comments are a wild mix some folks are floored and suggesting Netflix turn it into a docuseries about the Olympian-turned-drug-lord saga, while others are dropping corny jokes tying “snow” from snowboarding to the street slang for cocaine. But hey, that’s social media for you it amps up the hype, throws in opinions as facts, and often glosses over the real details.
Wedding’s still out there somewhere, probably hiding out in Mexico, and he’s climbed to the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list with a whopping $15 million bounty for info leading to his capture and conviction. Cops might go after more of his assets, squeeze informants from the cartels, or wrangle with Mexico on extradition. This whole mess shines a light on the U.S. battle against the fentanyl crisis that’s pouring across borders, claiming thousands of lives every year and hitting communities hard everywhere. As one insider in law enforcement told me, these cases show how these international crews play the system, and it’s going to take stronger global teamwork to really shut it down.
