You know you’ve got a fun one on your hands when an FBI press release opens with the line, “Ten defendants have been arrested – and 11 total are in custody – pursuant to a nine-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed today charging a former Olympic snowboarder now on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, a Canadian criminal barrister, a reggaeton musician, a would-be gangland news website operator, and others in connection with the January 31 murder in Colombia of a federal witness in a separate criminal case.” And boy, do we. Because that case also involves the FBI seizing an ultra-rare and expensive 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadster.
On Facebook this week, the FBI’s Los Angeles division posted four (objectively terrible) photos of the car, saying, “As part of the Giant Slalom investigative developments announced last week involving FBI Top Ten Fugitive, Ryan Wedding, and his associates, a rare 2002 Mercedes CLK-GTR valued at $13 million was seized by the FBI.” Why the photos look like something you might accidentally take if you dropped your phone on the floor close to the car, I have no idea, but considering the FBI posted them on Facebook, it’s at least fitting.
Still, that Mercedes is no random Facebook Marketplace listing. Only 28 CLK GTR road cars were ever built, only six of which were convertibles, and this is one of them. Is it worth exactly $13 million like the FBI claims? Who’s to say until it sells, but they’re probably not far off. It’s not like they come up for sale all that often, but a 2002 CLK GTR Roadster sold in 2023 for a little more than $10 million. Of course, we also don’t know whether it will survive long enough for the FBI to auction it off, since you just know Kash Patel is headed there right now in the FBI jet, hoping to take it for a spin with his country singer girlfriend.
From hitting the slopes to hitting the slopes
So, who is this Ryan Wedding, who somehow went from Olympic snowboarding to becoming a (now former) CLK GTR owner and one of the most wanted men in the world? According to NBC News, Wedding was born in Thunder Bay, a small city in Ontario, Canada, that Wikipedia’s list of notable people tells me also gave us Edgar Laprade, Elizabeth Smellie, and Elsie MacGill. He was also a talented enough skier to compete with Team Canada in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics in parallel giant slalom, but he didn’t medal or even come close, instead finishing 24th.
Six years later, in 2008, Wedding was arrested for trying to buy cocaine from an undercover FBI agent and was eventually found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He only received a 48-month sentence, though, and was released in December 2011 after the judge allowed him to count time served. Once he was released, Wedding reportedly went right back to a life of crime and soon became the biggest cocaine dealer in Canada:
In Wednesday’s unsealed indictment, law enforcement detailed how Wedding’s organization, working with members of Mexican drug cartels, allegedly used boats and planes to move hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. The organization then began using semitrucks to smuggle the drugs across the border from Mexico to its “hub” in Southern California, the indictment said. The cocaine would then be transported to Canada and other states, federal officials said.
At the Wednesday news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding’s organization is responsible for importing about 60 metric tons of cocaine a year into Los Angeles.
“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug-trafficking organizations in this world,” she said. “He is currently the largest distributor of cocaine in Canada.”
Wedding is currently charged with murder, witness tampering and intimidation, money laundering and drug trafficking and is believed to be hiding in Mexico, so he probably wasn’t driving his CLK GTR much before its seizure. Which really is a shame. What’s the point of becoming an international drug kingpin if you don’t get to drive your ultra-rare, street-legal race cars?
