U.S. authorities had informed the RCMP in advance about the impending arrest of Ryan Wedding before he was apprehended in Mexico last week, as confirmed by Commissioner Mike Duheme in an interview with CBC News. This disclosure suggests that investigators were aware of Wedding’s location prior to Jan. 22, when the Mexican government announced his “voluntary surrender.”
A detailed timeline has emerged, revealing a joint operation involving Mexican security forces and the elite FBI unit that was also involved in capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Duheme mentioned that he was instructed to be in Ontario, Calif., where Wedding was flown to on a U.S. Justice Department aircraft on Jan. 23, a few days before the operation took place.
The RCMP had been searching for Wedding since 2015 when he was charged in Montreal for his involvement in a significant cocaine-import conspiracy. Subsequently indicted in the U.S. a decade later on charges of murder and drug trafficking, Wedding was listed as one of the FBI’s top 10 most-wanted fugitives last March.
Accused of running a violent and sophisticated cocaine-smuggling operation connected to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Wedding pleaded not guilty to the 17 federal charges against him in California. Duheme described Wedding as one of the most significant criminals he has encountered during his 35-year tenure as a Mountie.
Flight records indicate that the U.S. government’s Boeing jet, which transported Wedding to southern California, had flown from Virginia to Mexico a day prior to his arrest. FBI Director Kash Patel, who coincidentally happened to be in Mexico for a scheduled meeting with Mexican officials, returned to the U.S. on the same jet as Wedding and another fugitive, Alejandro Castillo.
Following their arrival in California, Patel, Duheme, and other officials addressed the media from the tarmac but refrained from divulging specific details about the operation. Six days later, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged the FBI’s involvement in Wedding’s arrest, mentioning the intense negotiations that led to the apprehension.
Sheinbaum emphasized that Mexican authorities had led the arrest, countering previous claims that Wedding surrendered at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. The circumstances surrounding the high-profile arrest have stirred controversy in Mexico, where foreign agents’ operations are strictly regulated by law.
The situation has become more sensitive for Sheinbaum, especially after Maduro’s recent capture involving the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Mexican drug cartels. In a press conference, Sheinbaum mistakenly presented an AI-generated image of Wedding as proof of his voluntary surrender, later attributing the error to Meta’s failure to label the image correctly.
At Wedding’s arraignment in Santa Ana, Calif., his lawyer Anthony Colombo refuted claims that Wedding surrendered, asserting that he was apprehended. Los Angeles federal prosecutor Bill Essayli also questioned the narrative put forth by Mexican officials, praising the American law enforcement team for overcoming obstacles to capture Wedding.