A 35-year-old Montreal man, Tommy Demorizi, has been arrested in the United States in connection to the criminal organization allegedly run by former Canadian Olympian Ryan Wedding. Demorizi was apprehended at Newark International Airport in New Jersey on Tuesday. He is wanted on charges including conspiracy to distribute and export cocaine, conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to tamper with a witness.
Demorizi is accused of assisting Wedding's organization in locating Jonathan Acebedo Garcia, a Montrealer and FBI informant, who was later murdered in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025. He allegedly paid a Montreal-based reggaeton DJ up to $1,000 for Garcia's contact information after associates recognized him in a music video. Wedding allegedly placed a $5-million bounty on Acebedo Garcia after learning of his cooperation.
The arrest of Demorizi brings the total number of people charged in the case to 37. Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder who represented Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics, was arrested in Mexico last month after being on the run for a decade. He faces 17 charges related to murder and drug trafficking. FBI Director Kash Patel has compared Wedding to Pablo Escobar, calling him "the largest narco trafficker in modern times".
Wedding's criminal activities allegedly involved leading a transnational drug trafficking network and working with Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel to transport hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the U. S. and Canada. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and his trial is scheduled for later this summer. Several other Canadians have been arrested as part of the investigation, including a lawyer accused of advising the killing of a federal witness and a jeweller accused of being the "de facto bank" for the criminal enterprise.
