Dead cartel chief helped fugitive snowboarder dodge capture for 10 years

U.S. federal charges unsealed in Los Angeles on Tuesday reveal how Canadian fugitive Ryan Wedding avoided arrest in Mexico for a decade.

The indictment alleges that slain cartel leader Edgar Aaron Vazquez Alvarado, known as The General, provided Wedding with manipulated law enforcement credentials. These documents allowed Wedding and other co-conspirators to pass through security checkpoints without detection. Prosecutors said Vazquez also supplied a code word that changed almost daily to prevent Mexican police and military personnel from blocking cocaine loads.

Access to this protection came with a steep financial price. The indictment states that Vazquez charged Wedding a one-time initiation fee of 500,000 U.S. dollars to join a group of organized crime leaders. Members of this group received sensitive information regarding arrest warrants and ongoing investigations. Wedding allegedly paid an additional average monthly fee of 100,000 U.S. dollars to remain in the network.

Mexico’s Security Minister Omar García Harfuch announced last week that Vazquez was fatally shot during an operation by Mexican security forces. The 42-year-old former law enforcement officer was first publicly linked to Wedding a year ago when the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned him and his companies for ties to the Canadian. The U.S. and Canada both consider Vazquez’s syndicate a terrorist organization.

Wedding, 45, allegedly ran a drug-smuggling network that generated 1 billion U.S. dollars annually. The FBI stated he fled to Mexico around the time he faced criminal charges in Montreal in 2015. He was arrested in Mexico in January and currently remains in U.S. custody. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and drug trafficking charges and is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles next year.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office also identified Roberto Gomez as a key facilitator in Wedding’s evasion. The 51-year-old former Los Angeles resident, who used the aliases Fat Boy and Rooster, allegedly cultivated relationships with individuals who had access to sensitive law enforcement data. Prosecutors said Gomez maintained contact with leaders of the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels. In one instance, Gomez attempted to broker the sale of 453.6 kilograms of methamphetamine to Wedding for 550,000 U.S. dollars in cryptocurrency.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told CBC News last week that multiple attempts to capture Wedding were undermined. He said Wedding was either tipped off or given a warning each time, allowing him to evade authorities by narrow margins. Essayli stated that authorities believed Wedding was receiving consistent help from within the system.

The new charges against Vazquez and Gomez add to recent law enforcement activity in the case. The FBI announced last week that it arrested a Mexican judge in Colombia for accepting 2 million U.S. dollars in bribes to free Wedding’s alleged second-in-command, Andrew Clark. Mexican authorities are expected to auction 61 rare motorcycles seized from properties linked to Wedding on Wednesday. The FBI previously estimated the collection was worth 40 million U.S. dollars.