Slain cartel boss 'The General' provided Ryan Wedding with fake police ID to evade capture, U.S. alleges
U.S. federal charges announced on Tuesday provide new insight into two alleged accomplices accused of helping to protect Canadian Ryan Wedding while he was a fugitive in Mexico.
New charges give insight into how Canadian drug smuggler avoided arrest in Mexico for a decade
Thomas Daigle · CBC News
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How did Ryan Wedding — the Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned international fugitive — manage to evade capture for a decade in Mexico?
U.S. federal charges announced in California on Tuesday gave part of the answer, providing new insight into two alleged accomplices accused of helping to protect Wedding by using tactics worthy of the Netflix series Narcos.
According to a grand jury indictment unsealed in Los Angeles, cartel leader Edgar Aaron Vazquez Alvarado gave Wedding and other co-conspirators a code word so cocaine loads would not be blocked by Mexican police and military personnel.
The code word changed almost daily.
What's more, Vazquez is accused of providing Wedding and co-conspirators with "authentic law enforcement credentials" that were manipulated to bear their own names, allowing Wedding and others to safely pass through security checkpoints in Mexico.
But all that help came at a cost.
$500,000 US entry fee
U.S. prosecutors said Vazquez welcomed the Thunder Bay, Ont.-born Wedding into a club of organized crime leaders who received sensitive information, including details about arrest warrants and investigations.
The indictment, released Tuesday, said Vazquez charged Wedding a one-time initiation fee of $500,000 US to be allowed into the group, and an average monthly fee of $100,000 US.
Mexico Security Minister Omar García Harfuch announced last week that 42-year-old Vazquez — known as "The General" — had been fatally shot in an operation involving Mexican security forces.
WATCH | Mexican judge arrested for allegedly taking bribes linked to Wedding lieutenant:
Mexican judge accused of taking $2M bribe to free Ryan Wedding's right-hand man
November 5|
Duration
2:04
U.S. prosecutors have charged a Mexican judge for allegedly accepting a $2-million U.S. bribe to free alleged Canadian drug lord Ryan Wedding's second-in-command from detention. Luis Benitez Alcantara now faces extradition to the United States.His name was first publicly linked to Wedding a year ago when the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against Vazquez and his companies for their ties to the Canadian. The department identified Vazquez as a former Mexican law enforcement officer with high-level connections.
Wedding, 45, allegedly ran a murderous drug-smuggling network that generated $1 billion US a year. The FBI said he fled to Mexico around the time he faced criminal charges in Montreal in 2015.
Also known as Public Enemy, Wedding was arrested in Mexico in January and remains in U.S. custody. He has pleaded not guilty to a list of charges related to murder and drug trafficking. He is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles next year.
Suspect allegedly had ties to notorious cartels
Also in Tuesday's news release, the U.S. Attorney's Office in L.A. identified "reputed street gang member" Roberto Gomez as another key facilitator in Wedding's ability to spend years on the run.
Gomez, who went by the aliases Fat Boy and Rooster, allegedly cultivated relationships with people who had access to sensitive information from Mexican and U.S. law enforcement.
The prosecutor's office said the 51-year-old former L.A. resident also kept in touch with leaders of the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels — two of Mexico's most notorious criminal syndicates, considered terrorist organizations by the U.S. and Canada.
Ryan Wedding is escorted off a plane in Ontario, Calif., in January, hours after his arrest in Mexico. (FBI)
While Wedding was on the run, the FBI said he benefited from the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel, which was co-founded by infamous drug lord Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán. Further details of Wedding's purported arrangements in Mexico are only now beginning to trickle out.
"There were multiple attempts to capture Mr. Wedding, and in each of those attempts we were undermined," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told CBC News last week.
"He either was tipped off or was given a warning, and was somehow always able to evade us, just barely … and so it was our belief that he was getting help."
U.S. authorities allege Gomez provided Wedding with sensitive information to evade capture, and also helped supply him with bulk drug shipments.
In one instance, prosecutors said Gomez attempted to broker the sale of 453.6 kilograms of methamphetamine to Wedding for $550,000 US in cryptocurrency.
Gomez, who is listed as a fugitive living in Mexico, faces six charges, including drug offences and one count of attempting to transact and deal with a "specially designated narcotics trafficker."
The charges unsealed against Vazquez and Gomez add to a flurry of law enforcement activity over the past week in the Wedding case.
Ryan Wedding's alleged second-in-command, Canadian Andrew Clark, was arrested in Mexico in October 2024 in an operation involving Interpol and the Mexican navy. (Omar García Harfuch/Facebook)
The FBI announced the arrest in Colombia last week of a Mexican judge accused of accepting $2 million US in bribes to free Wedding's alleged second-in-command, Andrew Clark.
On Wednesday, Mexican authorities are expected to auction off 61 rare and high-performance motorcycles seized last year from properties linked to Wedding. The FBI previously estimated the collection was worth $40 million US.
The U.S. treasury also announced sanctions against Iran-linked firms in the Toronto and Vancouver areas accused of helping Wedding launder billions of dollars in drug proceeds.
CBC News senior reporter Thomas Daigle has extensively covered the case of Ryan Wedding. He can be reached by email at thomas.daigle@cbc.ca.
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