Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Christmas and New Year's. Here we are at tpl. And I'll tell you this, the FBI hasn't taken a break either over the last couple of days. They seem to be honing in and getting closer to Ryan wedding. I don't know how to operate the teleprompter. Forgive me. I'll read this to you.
He's a former, of course, former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin and one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives. And in the U.S. authorities want him for allegedly running a vast and violent transnational drug trafficking enterprise responsible for importing multi ton quantities of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine from Colombia through Mexico into the US And Canada. He's considered extremely dangerous and accused, accused of orchestrating dozens of murders globally, including the killing of a US federal witness in Columbia in 2025, putting him on the FBI top 10 most wanted. Joining me today, Paul Micucci. Happy post holidays, man.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Same to you, Mike. Happy post holidays. And you know the one thing I actually noted when we prep for this show, this gentleman is 44 years old.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: So he's a young guy. Right. And young guy who's very athletic and somehow went off the, apparently went off the track and has orchestrated this huge drug cartel that we sort of were for some reason notified about it when Pam Bondi and the US government stood up and said, hey, by the way, he's on the most wanted list. And yeah, yeah, he's the guy, Paul.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: That's the almost the biggest takeaway so far on all of this for me. I said to you guys when we were, when we got together this morning, whoever heard of Ryan Wedding? Like the name would stick out in my mind.
You know, we got Chapel, all of the big drug lords that we've known throughout the years. Yeah, we know their names. This is one of the biggest allegedly. And we found out about it from the FBI.
He never came up on my radar before that.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: No. No. And which is interesting. And you know, his transportation, his legal everything is right here in Canada across the country.
Representing them. Representing them through the U.S. mexico.
We weren't even aware of it, to tell you the truth.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: No, it's funny that you say Pam Bondi because she got a lot of heat at that time, that she was just throwing shade at Canada. But as the numbers came out, $1 billion worth of drug trade at the wholesale level between Colombia, Mexico and US and Canada, that enough is a pretty big network. But apparently this is a global thing. Like he's into Europe and Asia and of course, yeah, like you point out a snowboarding kid from Thunder Bay. Not all that, not all that experienced in the world, you would think, outside of Canada. And here he is running this big operation.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Well, and you know, go back a little bit and you know, as we, as we proceed to 2026, look back, you know, we were told at one point that the whole tariff initiative was based on the fact that we had an crazy outbreak of drug.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Oh yeah, we were the fentanyl capital of the world.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: We were the world. And we denied it. So we said, okay, we're not, you know, we don't have this problem. Then we threw a bunch of people on the border.
You know, everyone. We're going to hire, you know, a couple thousand people to go secure the border. So we did.
And then voila, all of a sudden we find out that Ryan Wedding is the mastermind behind the international drug cartel.
And now he's hiding somewhere in Mexico. I don't know if you saw him on your last trip, but.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: I did not. Well, listen, if I did, I would be $15 million richer because that's what they're offering up in a reward. But yeah, apparently they, they are getting. Here's today's update. Recent raids by Mexican authorities in Mexico City and and surrounding areas conducted in cooperation with the US Law enforcement targeted properties linked to Wedding. And these operations led to the seizure of 62 high end motorcycles. Wow. Vehicles, artwork, drugs, ammunition. And two Olympic medals. Neither of them his because he didn't win one.
Oh, so that, that was an ad.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: An odd.
Did he buy Olympic Med, I guess online.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah, don't know.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: I. Well, I know the swimmers all the time. Sell them, you know, a lot of the guys who.
Times. Yeah, I think Greg Le, like, you know, diver or whatever. Yeah, he. I think he had to sell his. I just saw somewhere.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: But yeah, it's good. I bet you if, if you actually win one of those, they'll let you replace it too. I think that you get it officiated. But he's known as El Jefe and Giant. And his criminal organization, you know, really became exposed when he was. He was arrested for cocaine trafficking in the late 2000s. I think he, you know, I think he was starting to unravel at that point. But still, we hadn't heard of him. He did three years for trafficking in the U.S.
he did some here in Canada as well, the RCMP. But like I say, not a name I had ever heard before.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: No, no, it's. And it's Interesting. It's kind of the way this is unrolling. I don't know if you saw the movie the Running man over Christmas, but.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: No, but I, I'm going to. On your recommendation.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Well, it has kind of that feel to it all of a sudden. You know, he's disclosed now he's on the run. There's, you know, there's a bounty on his head. And now we seem to be getting these updates where we're getting closer and closer to him.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: And I assume there's going to be a, you know, a final scene somewhere upcoming because we keep getting notification that it's about to happen or they usually don't. Whereabouts.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: They don't make releases. Like they're on a wild goose chase. Usually they're. They've already got the guy. They've got their man in their sights.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Before the end. And part of this would be using the news to distract him or confuse him or whatever the case is, unnerve him, because he's definitely watching the news at any given time. He's watching this podcast. I do hope, Ryan, subscribe, tell a friend, and when you get to prison. But, you know, you, you raised a really interesting point. A few minutes ago. We were all put on alert. These tariffs were meant against Canada for all of, I mean, for a million reasons. But the first reason that Trump popped out with was, well, you, you know, you're providing a drug problem to my country.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Okay. So if we get this guy to your point, if, if our man's captured, there shouldn't be any more drug trafficking of that level into Canada. We've made a really good, at least a really big dent in it, this problem.
So now we're back, we're good with the tariffs. We can go back to where we were.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Well, yeah, yeah. No, there's a lot of other issues right now. Well, it proceeded ahead after that, but.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: It'S true he piled a lot of stuff on. But the first thing that we heard was that this was a real problem and it was the number one stopping factor.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, but if this is the major arm that was transporting all this fentanyl and other drugs into Canada.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Then yeah, it should, if you think about it, it actually should eliminate quite a bit of the challenges that we have and hopefully with our increased border security, which, you know, we. We paying a ton more money. Yeah. We've hired people, we've trained people, we brought people in. We should be able to be nipping that one in the Buddha transportation wise. I think we Covered that because we found out, you know, through the group and from B.C. to Brampton and all around, we've seemed to have nipped sort of how the, or figured out how the transportation of all this fentanyl was happening.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: So now we know it was being warehoused.
Warehouse, stores.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: The logistics.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Logistics containers, transportation. You know, the, the guy who actually was the original gentleman turned on him, quite frankly was the logistics, the transportation company that was moving it back and forth. And he had lots of issues on his own.
And then, you know, his lawyer who is defending him here. Right. He's been in the news quite a bit.
You know, very outwardly, you know, not shy.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Deep back parad car.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: At cocaine lawyer, I think was, yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: He was really hiding the issue that what he was doing.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: So he got somebody off on, I think two kilograms of. Was that right? Christoph. It was a, a two kilogram drug charge. And he was so proud of himself. He changed his handle but.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: And only got a reprimand from the law Society. Didn't get his, you know, disbarred.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: No, he didn't get disbarred or anything for it. I, I. By the way, he's referred to as many lawyers in the Toronto area as Napoleon. He comes out a little hard, certainly impressed with himself.
But it was interesting because this guy got out on bail.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: $5 million bail.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: 5 million, yep.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Now why would they.
Let's go back and talk about why they arrested him. They arrested him because he advised Ryan Wedding, one of the top, one of the top 10 most wanted FBI, most wanted criminals.
He recommended to Ryan Wedding that he kill a star client, star witness, somebody who would definitely be able to take him down in, in a case out of Columbia.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Right. That was alleged that they're saying that that's why they have evidence. They say that he did do that.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Okay, so it's alleged by the FBI who placed him under arrest and then released him on $5 million bail. Right. So get thinking about this.
First of all, probably the lawyer you want. If you've got a drug charge against you, that's significant, sounds like he's got a, a way about him, whatever the case.
But also, if you were the FBI and you only let him and you knew that he could get $5 million together to put aside, why wouldn't you make that a higher amount? Why wouldn't you press the judge to give a higher bail amount? I have a theory on this, if I may, and this is just a theory.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: There's Mike's theory.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Mike's theory Mike's theory, not Paul's theory.
Kristof, if it's also your theory, go ahead and shout out he's bait. I think they're using him to find out who. I think they're putting him out on the street to see who comes after him because he's the next problem that they have in court.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, probably. You know, when I say they, I.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Mean the Ryan camp.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the camp. They, you know, he's got all the details. The client priv. Privilege is an issue, so I'm assuming he still has to deal with that issue. And they do, too.
But, yeah, I'm sure they're actually trying to see who comes and knocking at the door, trying to get. Figure out what he's going to do next.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Influence him or. Or make him unable to have influence.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: So go back for a minute, because I want to before we leave it, Mike, I just want to go back through this so this is all done. So, you know, the end of the running man game comes to an end, and quite frankly, they find Ryan.
Whether he makes it out or not, whether he surrenders, that'll all kind of play out like it plays out wherever in Mexico they do find him, or even if he's in Mexico, he might not even be there for all we know. But. But wherever they find him, they find him. It looks like they're telling us they're getting closer, so we're getting the news in advance, like you mentioned, Unless he's really cunning guy and he's just a decoy and he's somewhere else.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: You wonder, right? Like he's managed to evade authorities to this point.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: He has enough money grapes. He could.
He could have had plastic surgery and disappeared and, you know, be living somewhere under another alias. But say they. That's not true. And they do find him. They do bring him in. They do all that stuff.
Okay, We've nipped the biggest. What are they. Wouldn't you mention they call him the Giant or Elf.
El Jefe. So El Jefe in. In the FBI said he was. He's the modern day El Chapo. Yeah.
So they do cap that off.
Okay, so that's it now. So now we are.
Let's say we've reduced the transportation into Canada of fentanyl, cocaine, all those things by half.
All right.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Significantly, anyway.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Significantly More. Okay, maybe more. So is there a need? I guess there's always a need to secure the border and to make sure things happen, but then we can go back and say, okay, it's not a problem in our country anymore. So should we. Okay, and. And this is kind of a good one for Jeff Wilson and his response.
So then if the source is eliminated or a part of the source of the drug trafficking is eliminated, should we not start to see the impacts?
[00:13:31] Speaker A: It's a good question.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: So homelessness, three people. So it should. Should we now start to see that? Because this has been going on for a while now. I'm wondering if, you know, if we talk to the local police and the counselors on the street, are we seeing less now?
[00:13:50] Speaker A: I also wonder if this is just the lowest hanging fruit with a large amount of drugs and crime attached to it.
And once this is removed from the plant, will we be able to see other fruit behind it, you know, from other cartels, other groups?
Will taking a large chunk of this problem away, reveal what's remaining? And will we pursue that? Because where there's a gap, this criminal element has a tendency to fill the void quickly with their own sources. Another route in for the original guys.
How do we stop it from building back?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: How do we stop from transporting it into Canada?
[00:14:35] Speaker A: How do we stop whatever's been stopped with Ryan wedding that now is a void? Well, how do we stop the criminal element from filling that void in Canada again?
[00:14:45] Speaker B: But we do know how it was transported. So the interesting thing I always find in these cases is we do know how it's transported into Canada.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: So, you know, we do know the ports it comes in.
We know the transportation logistics. So quite frankly, I find it a little bizarre that we keep asking the same point. It really is.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Well, it's a good point. Like if we know it's coming in through these ports in this manner.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: So if I'm in Montreal and I'm coming. Let's be serious, you're in Montreal. It comes into the port of Montreal, which, you know, years ago, the port authority got quite weakened as far as the police force. We know that. So say it comes in through Montreal, it's coming down to Ontario.
There's only so many routes down.
It's not super complicated. Right. We don't have multiple highways to come down.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Is what you're saying to me, Paul, that the 401.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Is the drug traffic route, the cocaine highway.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Pretty much. Right. If that's the route it's coming down on, you know, unless.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Oh, My God, the 401 is Cocaine Highway.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Unless they're going through the country. Unless they're taking country.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Scenic, you know, and they're not.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: There's no way that. Because there's Truck restrictions. You get yourself caught that way.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Exactly. So they wouldn't be doing that unless there was, you know, a reason to get off the highway for an accident or whatever. So they're coming straight down, so that's fine. If they're coming out of bc, that's an even easier one, quite frankly. Right.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: No, your point is, is very simple.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: Transportation roads. Like, we're not a complicated country. So I find it very interesting for these conversations all the time. Well, how is it coming into Canada? Holy crap. Like, we only have in our ports. Yeah.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Or is coming on a truck.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Right. And we only have so many major routes to transport. So now we do have way stations. We have truck, you know, areas that we do check trucks for loads and such.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Just outside of Vancouver, just outside of Toronto.
And I can use this example in a big way.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Caledonia has what used to be farmers fields now filled.
I'm talking, you know, of these containers that are widely, obviously unregulated by anybody. They're sitting there, they've passed whatever inspection needs to happen, and they're sitting there.
Paul, I drive by these and I think to myself, what do you think's in there?
How much crime is in those containers?
And obviously, MTO can only do so much border services. Being on our highways can only do so much. But I think you get a point. Like, if it's coming in at ports, it's coming in on trucks, and it's making its way on these highways.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: What are we doing?
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Well, we're waiting for the FBI to tell us we have a drug problem. And the number one guy is, you know, born in Thunder Bay, was Olympic skier.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: It's a little.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: It is a kind of a bizarre. It's a bizarre story, really. Like, if you. If you go back and think about this a few months ago.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: When we were all sitting watching tv, and all of a sudden he popped up, and then they showed that, you know, that picture of him, you know, skiing down the hill.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: You know, it's 23 late. 23 years later, in 20. In 2002, he competed for Canada Salt Lakes.
So this is. He allegedly started in 2010, involvement with organized crime dealing, I guess, in Canada.
And it just expanded and expanded.
He was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list March of this year.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: So 25, 23 years later, here he is on the top 10 most wanted list.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: And we. We didn't pick him up.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Well, for 23 years, he went widely unnoticed by me.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. I guess we didn't Pick him up. I guess it did have to be. He was, you know, caught in maybe from what I've read, it's kind of a cross border coordinated effort that they surveilled him. There were points in time when they were enough to him that they could have moved on them and they didn't. They just wanted to see it all play out and see how it led and who was the, who was the mastermind behind it.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: They're like me, they're sitting there going, there's no way this guy is the head of this thing.
So who else is behind him? And that may have been.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: It does look weird, you know, 44 year old guy, former skier. So, you know, probably hung around skiing ski bum for probably 25 to 30 years of his life and then all of a sudden got it together and figured out how to be the international drug carte leader.
Yeah, yeah, listen, maybe, maybe there's always.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: It's a fast ride to the top, Paul.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: It's a fast ride. It's a fast ride to the bottom, but down that hill. But it is, it does seem, the story seems, how do I say, doesn't seem very plausible, but it seems like it needs to be dug into more and kind of unraveled because that's where, you know, as we were, as we're watching and listening to it and now the kind of the end here where we're kind of getting closer, we're getting closer, we're getting closer. It does seem, it's an odd ending.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: It's a little calculated. Yeah. It's almost like the authorities know exactly what they're doing and they're just making it play out the best they can.
I'll tell you this, thanks to Kristoff and everybody else in our news capture team, we'll keep an eye on this. But I'm glad we sat down and talked about it because my, my two takeaways, three takeaways were this lawyer better watch his back. He's out there, he's bait on the end of a hook to try and get more information or to get closer to Ryan wedding 2. How come I never heard of Ryan Wedding before if he's the biggest kingpin?
And you know, the, the third thing is, okay, now that we're getting down to this, who's really behind this guy? I think that's the next thing we're going to find out about and I hope that we do it together here. Paul, thank you.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Thanks, Mike.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Appreciate it. Don't forget, subscribe, like tell a friend and visit TPL Media ca. Don't hesitate to donate or subscribe. That's how we keep this thing running. Thanks. See you next time.
