Wedding was first incarcerated in 2008 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where, according to Kalina, he began forging connections and absorbing lessons from seasoned foreign traffickers. “We did hear comments he’d make about meeting interesting people and learning things,” says Kalina, who listened to phone calls Wedding made to the outside world.
After his conviction for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, Wedding was transferred to a federal prison in Texas. There, he met the man who would, more than a decade later, help bring about his downfall: Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Colombian-Canadian with deep knowledge of the trade. Upon Wedding’s release in December 2011, the FBI alleges that he formally established his trafficking organization and installed Acebedo-Garcia as one of his most trusted operatives.
Then, in 2024, Acebedo-Garcia appeared to vanish. Within Wedding’s organization, alarm bells went off. Word spread that he had been flipped by the FBI. He earned a new nickname: “the rat.”
According to a US indictment, Wedding’s attorney, Deepak Paradkar—who often operated under the alias “cocaine lawyer”—advised that Wedding’s legal exposure would be far reduced if Acebedo-Garcia could not physically testify. Soon after, prosecutors allege in the indictment, Wedding put a $5 million bounty on his former operative’s head. Paradkar, himself, was arrested in Canada and charged in 2025 for conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to retaliate against a witness after allegedly encouraging Wedding to kill a key witness in his case. He is currently out on bail, awaiting an extradition hearing, and denies any wrongdoing. (Paradkar did not respond to VF’s request for comment).
The message traveled fast and wide: through a professional Canadian poker player and diamond dealer; Wedding’s 34-year-old Mexican wife (who he married while still in prison, and is also wanted, along with his 23-year-old Colombian girlfriend, by the FBI). A Colombian madam who runs a high-end escort service in Mexico City, and one of her escorts have both already been arrested in connection to this case. Add to that Wedding’s alleged network of sicarios—trained, prosecutors say, by a former Italian mercenary tied to laundering money and procuring luxury items for Wedding, including an ultra rare Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR roadster.
Acebedo-Garcia was shot five times in the head last January after having lunch with friends at a restaurant in Medellín. Authorities say Wedding quickly received a photograph of the body, which he circulated, cheerily touting that he had killed “the rat.”
“Wedding placed the bounty on the victim’s head, and the erroneous belief that the victim’s death would result in the dismissal of criminal charges against him and his international drug trafficking ring, and would further ensure that he was not extradited to the United States, says Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California. “He was wrong.”
This is a developing story.