Ryan Wedding allegedly hired group linked to Pablo Escobar to kill informant: Prosecutors
· Toronto Sun
Ryan Wedding is accused of hiring Colombian cartel members to kidnap and torture an FBI informant, U.S. prosecutors say.
The 44-year-old is also believed to have asked the group to track the cellphones of Canadian targets.
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The latest intel comes after a nearly 50-page summary of the case was presented to defence lawyers representing some of Wedding’s associates arrested in Canada in November 2025.
The new, 46-page document delves into the January 2025 assassination of Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Montreal-born ex-drug trafficker-turned-FBI informant, according to CBC .
How the murder played out
Wedding is believed to have placed a bounty of up to US$5 million on the 42-year-old after he learned his former associate was working with the feds.
Acebedo-Garcia was shot in the head five times while having lunch with friends in a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia.
The record of the case notes alleges that “originally, Wedding told the Oficina to kidnap Victim A,” referring to Acebedo-Garcia, “and ‘chop him up,’ meaning to torture and subsequently kill” him, but the plan was revised to an “execution-style” slaying involving a gunman using a silencer.
His killers had not been identified, however, U.S. prosecutors now say that Wedding allegedly hired La Oficina de Envigado, a notorious Colombian organized crime syndicate, to assassinate Acebedo-Garcia.
La Oficina originated in the 1980s when members of the criminal organization provided enforcement and collection services for the Medellín Cartel, including the late Pablo Escobar.
Today, the group is involved in international drug trafficking, drug debt collection, money laundering, extortion and murder for hire, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
La Oficina allegedly surveilled Acebedo-Garcia, his wife, and Acebedo-Garcia’s mistress, identified in the documents as J.R.
Wedding is alleged to have claimed early last year that he had paid the group US$2.5 million for Acebedo-Garcia’s killing, but an associate allegedly said the amount paid was a fraction of that (about the equivalent of US$500,000 in cryptocurrency).
Tracking cellphones in Canada and Mexico
The former Olympic snowboarder is also believed to have paid US$18,500 to an unidentified La Oficina member to track Acebedo-Garcia’s cellphone through spyware, but they were unsuccessful.
However, new evidence suggests Wedding used the phone tracker “numerous times in Canada and Mexico,” according to the case summary.
Notably, Wedding is alleged to have shown an associate a screenshot of the spyware in use, which displayed a Montreal number “being tracked in real time.”
Wedding, 44, was taken into U.S. custody last month in Mexico and subsequently pleaded not guilty to the 17 drug and murder charges he is facing.
Law enforcement officials accused Wedding of moving as much as 60 tons of cocaine through Colombia, Mexico, Canada and California and suspected that he was working with the blessing of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
He was indicted in 2024 on a number of charges related to drugs and murder, including allegedly running a billion-dollar drug-running empire that was the largest supplier of cocaine to Canada.
Wedding is charged with directing the 2023 slayings of two members of a Canadian family as payback for a stolen shipment of drugs and for ordering another’s death over a drug debt. Added to those charges is the alleged organizing the murder of a Colombian would-be witness to dodge extradition to the U.S.
He was on the list of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives with a $15-million reward offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
Canada has issued its own charges against Wedding dating back to 2015.
Eight Canadians named in a federal grand jury indictment are facing extradition to California. The accusations against them have not been proven in court.
‘Cocaine Lawyer’s alleged involvement
Prosecutors previously alleged Toronto lawyer Deepak Paradkar counselled Wedding and his right-hand man Andrew Clark to kill Acebedo-Garcia to ensure U.S. prosecutors would have no case against them.
The record of the case claims even after the informant’s murder, the self-proclaimed ‘Cocaine Lawyer’ insisted the FBI’s case was no longer viable.
Paradkar, who was released on $5-million bail in December 2025, has denied wrongdoing.
According to prosecutors, Wedding allegedly insisted in an encrypted chat with an associate in June 2025 that U.S. authorities had no case against them after Acebedo-Garcia’s killing.
“Without him, there’s nothing,” Wedding allegedly wrote.
Clark, a former Burlington resident and now-FBI informant, is expected to testify against Wedding when their case is scheduled to go to trial in Los Angeles later this year.