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• FBI arrested ex-Olympian Ryan Marriage ceremony in Mexico, ending cocaine trafficking manhunt.
• Indictment says Marriage ceremony used crypto and USDT wallets to shatter up and cowl proceeds.
• Chainalysis reports illicit crypto flows hit $154 billion in 2025, up 162% three hundred and sixty five days over.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) presented the arrest of Ryan Marriage ceremony on costs of cocaine trafficking and assassinate. Marriage ceremony allegedly ran a transnational drug trafficking operation that relied on cryptocurrency to slide and launder the proceeds. 

The event marked the continuation of the more and more relevant feature that digital sources, and stablecoin payments, in explicit, play in facilitating illicit finance.

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FBI Ends Decade-Long Manhunt

In response to the FBI, authorities took Marriage ceremony, a 44-three hundred and sixty five days-dilapidated weak Canadian Olympic snowboarder, into custody on Thursday night. The arrest marked a decade-prolonged manhunt of 1 in every of the Department of Justice’s most wanted fugitives. 

Marriage ceremony reportedly grew to change into himself in at the United States embassy in Mexico Metropolis, revealed Mexican authorities.

The arrest stemmed from Marriage ceremony’s alleged feature in a transnational drug trafficking operation below the fly of 1 in every of Mexico’s most interesting felony organizations. Authorities also alleged Marriage ceremony operated below several pseudonyms, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy.”

“He used to be allegedly working and taking half in a transnational drug trafficking operation that automatically shipped a whole bunch of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, thru Mexico and Southern California to the United States and Canada – as a member of the Sinaloa Cartel,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a social media put up. 

In 2024, the FBI presented a $15 million reward for recordsdata leading to his take hang of. 

Two months ago, leading prosecutor Bill Essayli unveiled in a press conference that Marriage ceremony used to be also accountable for the assassinate of a stumble on who used to be shot five times within the pinnacle in a cafe in Colombia final January. 

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Authorities also highlighted that Marriage ceremony’s operations relied on cryptocurrencies to launder money and slide proceeds across borders.

USDT Wallets Outmoded to Imprecise Proceeds

In response to the indictment, Marriage ceremony’s venture would cowl a foremost quantity of the earnings made thru cocaine gross sales the spend of US and Canadian greenbacks, as properly as cryptocurrencies. 

Authorities argued that the venture relied on a refined Tether-based system to provide so. 

The plan enthusiastic splitting mountainous sums into smaller transactions. These funds were then routed thru more than one intermediary USDT wallets sooner than converging in a central Tether wallet allegedly managed by Marriage ceremony.

The indictment also revealed that in November 2024, one more defendant obtained around 2 million Colombian pesos to advance operations. The pesos had allegedly been converted from cryptocurrency as price for roughly 300 kilograms of cocaine. 

Marriage ceremony’s case is proper one among several others that comprise surfaced fair lately. Earlier this month, the DOJ charged a Venezuelan national for allegedly the spend of crypto in a $1 billion money laundering plan.

In the meantime, cryptocurrency crime reached an all-time high in 2025. 

In response to blockchain analysis agency Chainalysis, illicit addresses obtained at the least $154 billion final three hundred and sixty five days, representing a 162% broaden from 2024. 

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