FBI seizes one of six Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadsters from former Olympic snowboarder currently on list of 10 most wanted fugitives – Jalopnik

You know you’ve got a nice one on your hands when an FBI press release starts with the line: “Ten defendants have been arrested – and a total of eleven are in custody – on 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 defense lawyer, a reggaeton musician, a would-be operator of a gangland news website and others in connection with the Jan. 31 murder in Colombia on a federal witness in a separate criminal case.” And boy, so do we. Because that case also concerns the seizure of an extremely rare and expensive 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadster by the FBI.

On Facebook this week, the FBI’s Los Angeles branch posted four (objectively terrible) photos of the car, writing: “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 ground close to the car, I have no idea, but since the FBI posted them on Facebook, it’s at least appropriate.

Yet that Mercedes is not a random listing on Facebook Marketplace. 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 as the FBI claims? Who knows until it sells, but they’re probably not far away. It’s not like they come up for sale that often, but… a 2002 CLK GTR roadster sold in 2023 for just over $10 million. Of course, we also don’t know if it will last long enough for the FBI to auction it off, because you just know Kash Patel is heading there right now in the FBI jet, hoping to take it for a ride with his country singer girlfriend.

Six years later, in 2008, Wedding was arrested for trying to buy cocaine from an undercover FBI agent and was ultimately found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. However, he received only a 48-month prison sentence and was released in December 2011 after the judge allowed him to count the time served. Once he was released, Wedding reportedly went right back to a life of crime and quickly became the largest cocaine dealer in Canada:

In Wednesday’s unsealed indictment, police detailed how Wedding’s organization, which worked with members of Mexican drug cartels, allegedly used boats and planes to transport hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. The organization then began using semi-trucks to smuggle the drugs across the border from Mexico to its “hub” in Southern California, the indictment said. The cocaine would then be shipped to Canada and other states, federal officials said.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wedding’s organization is responsible for importing about 60 tons of cocaine into Los Angeles each year.

“He controls one of the most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations in the 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. He is believed to be hiding out in Mexico, so he likely didn’t drive his CLK GTR for long before it was seized. That’s really a shame. What’s the point of becoming an international drug lord if you can’t drive your ultra-rare, street-legal race cars?