Did Ryan Wedding really turn himself in? Arrest sparks duelling narratives, fake photos and political intrigue

There are three sides that should know what really happened last week in Mexico when Ryan Wedding was taken into custody by the FBI: the U.S. government, Mexico’s government and Wedding himself.

After hearing from all sides, however, there is no consensus. Spokespeople for each have provided brief categorizations of the capture but none have offered details, a narrative account, or proof. Did he surrender or was he captured, and if so by whom?

Ryan Wedding, the former snowboard competitor on Canada’s Olympic team at the 2002 Winter Olympics, was in the global limelight again in 2024 after explosive allegations by the U.S. Department of Justice alleging he was a major transnational cocaine kingpin hiding in Mexico, while protecting his operation through murders.

A second U.S. announcement of an additional indictment, in 2025, named Wedding as a top-tier threat, alleging he interfered with the federal investigation against him by orchestrating an audacious transnational hit that killed the FBI’s star confidential cooperating witness in Colombia.

With a US$15-million bounty on his head and the arrest of dozens of his alleged co-conspirators in Canada, Mexico and the United States, there was a constant flurry of headlines when there came sudden news late last week of Wedding’s arrest.

Uncertainty over the circumstances of the arrest began almost immediately. On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel stepped off a U.S. government jet outside of Los Angeles, just steps behind Wedding who had been led out of the plane in handcuffs and paraded for cameras within hours of his arrest in Mexico.

Patel revealed that Wedding, a top ten most wanted fugitive, was in U.S. custody and had just been flown from Mexico to face serious charges in the United States over massive drug trafficking and multiple murders.

Speaking to reporters gathered beside the plane, Patel declined to talk about how Wedding came to be there, citing “operational sensitivities,” but in a social media post he made it sound forceful and dramatic, praising the actions of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), the same elite SWAT-style unit that grabbed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela earlier this month.

“This was a zero-margin, high-risk operation,” Patel said Friday. The HRT “executed with precision, discipline, and total professionalism alongside our Mexican partners to bring Ryan James Wedding back to face justice.”

Without saying that a secret HRT operation snatched Wedding by surprise, his account did conjure the idea of a dramatic and dangerous raid.

While Patel was on the plane, however, officials in Mexico said that Wedding had voluntarily surrendered at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City.

Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s top public safety and security secretary, said that Patel was in Mexico City at the time for discussions on greater cooperation between the countries on the apprehension of high-value fugitives. He said two men on the FBI’s most wanted list left Mexico with the FBI that morning, including the Canadian.

The image of a voluntary surrender didn’t line up well with the drama suggested of a “zero-margin, high-risk operation” by tactical forces.

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald D. Johnson, seemed to draw the two positions together a bit.

He issued a statement Friday in both English and Spanish. The English statement said Wedding did “surrender” because of the “direct result of pressure applied by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement working in close coordination.” In the Spanish language version, he wrote that Wedding had “voluntarily surrendered.”

The distinction of surrender verses capture matters, because it appears that a Canadian citizen was arrested in Mexico and whisked to the United States without judicial oversight. Also, Patel’s description could be interpreted as a direct action on Mexican soil without Mexico’s legislative approval, which could be viewed as a violation of Mexico’s constitution.

This week, new statements continued to fuel the confusion rather than settle it.

Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, at her daily press conference on Monday was asked about Wedding’s arrest and removal from Mexico.

“This person, a Canadian national, turned himself in at the embassy, believing, according to his own assessment, that it was better to surrender than to remain under pursuit, because he has a pending investigation in the United States,” she said.

To support her statement, she projected on the screen behind her a photo purporting to be of Wedding, dressed exactly like he was when he stepped off the plane in California, standing casually outside the American embassy in Mexico before turning himself in.

The photo was from an Instagram account that is fake. A series of photos previously posted to the account showed signs of being generated by artificial intelligence. They were all deleted after Wedding’s arrest and replaced by a new post about his surrender. It included a statement claiming to be from Wedding: “After seeking guarantees for a fair process, I have decided to voluntarily turn myself in to the authorities.”

A close examination, however, shows red flags it is an AI fake.

There is a halo effect around the top of the ball cap in the photo and the lettering of the logo on the front of the cap is muddled and indistinct, which is a particular tell-tale sign of AI creation. It also shows Wedding outside the site of the former U.S. embassy, a building under renovation and not used as the embassy.

On Tuesday, Wedding’s U.S. lawyer, Anthony Colombo, confirmed to National Post the Instagram account is fraudulent: “It is a fake. My client has zero connection to it,” he said.

Sheinbaum’s use of a fake photo and statement, apparently unknowingly, to support her position of a surrender undermined Mexico’s case rather than helped assert it.

Mexico’s Attorney General, Ernestina Godoy Ramos, also spoke up. Her depiction, released in Spanish, reflected that of the U.S. ambassador and Mexico’s security minister.

“Wedding voluntarily surrendered following an intense period of pressure from the Secretary of Security and Protection and the Attorney General’s Office under my supervision, supporting a renewed commitment in the context of the highest political priority where the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum has sought to strengthen the exchange of intelligence with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Ramos then explained why the circumstance of the arrest is important — and touchy — within Mexico.

“It should not be seen as an act of subordination but as deployment of strategic joint responsibility,” she said.

“Mexico and the United States share a border, but even more importantly, they share common challenges in security, justice, and the fight against transnational crime. Faced with these challenges, our conviction is that cooperation is not optional; it is indispensable and must be based on mutual trust, respect for sovereignty, and co-responsibility.”

Late on Monday, the public then finally heard from a representative of the third party with intimate knowledge of what happened: Wedding’s lawyer.

Colombo spoke to the media after the arraignment in a California court where Wedding pleaded not guilty to all charges in the two indictments that allege drug trafficking, witness tampering, and conspiracy to commit murder.

“He didn’t surrender. He was apprehended. He was arrested. And so any spin that the government of Mexico is putting on this, that he surrendered, is inaccurate,” Colombo said.

“I think if there is anybody in a position to know how his arrest and apprehension went down it is his counsel. So those reports of what happened, that he surrendered, (are) completely inaccurate.

“I can understand. Look, the Trump administration with the apprehension of Maduro has made clear that we’re in a bold new era with regard to international relations. So, one can understand why that statement might have been put out. Because if the United States is unilaterally going into a sovereign country and apprehending somebody, you know, you can understand the concern that sovereign entity might have.

“But he was apprehended,” Colombo said.

By whom, he did not say.

Like Patel, Sheinbaum, Harfuch, Johnson and Ramos, Colombo did not offer any details, proof, or an account as to how it came about. He didn’t say who arrested Wedding, or where, or whether they were American or Mexican officers.

He declined to provide additional details or information on it when asked by the Post.

It is not disputed that Wedding was arrested, but was he arrested when he came to surrender or to negotiate a surrender? Was he snatched off the street, and if so, by whom? Colombo also did not address that a U.S. official has also declared Wedding’s arrest as the result of surrender. It is not just a Mexican account.

Reporters outside the courthouse asked Colombo how the arrest happened, but he did not answer

“He is in good spirits. He’s strong,” Colombo said. “He’s a former Olympic athlete, which obviously takes a lot of mental toughness to participate in those types of games and at a high level, so he’s in good spirits.”

The new statements do nothing to clarify the circumstances of the arrest.

On Tuesday, Sheinbaum was asked by reporters about her use of the fake photo. She blamed social media platforms, saying they are responsible for flagging fake content.

She then turned to the U.S. ambassador’s statement on the arrest “to address any doubts about this,” she said in Spanish, pointing to a projection of the ambassador’s statement on the same screen where the fake Wedding photo had been.

“I’m not going to get into a debate with the FBI director, nor do I want there to be a conflict,” Sheinbaum said. “What they, the United States authorities, told the Mexican authorities is that it was a voluntary surrender. And that’s the same statement issued by the United States Embassy in Mexico.”

Her words, though, revealed a new element. Her position, she said, is based on information provided by U.S. officials. That suggests Mexican officials were not there and only learned of the arrest afterwards.

That raises the spectre of whether there was, in the end, more substance to Patel’s dramatic allusions. FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller declined to provide any additional details, citing an ongoing investigation and prosecution.

“Our official position is that Ryan Wedding was arrested on Thursday night in Mexico and returned to the United States on Friday under FBI escort,” she said Tuesday.

Ramos’ statement did include the attorney general’s understanding of Wedding’s alleged role within the crowded narco field in her country.

“Wedding, known by the alias El Jefe or The Giant, is no ordinary criminal. His history is atypical, almost alarming: before leading a cocaine trafficking network of a global scale, he represented Canada at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 as a snowboarder.

“Prior to being deported, Wedding transformed himself into a logistics operator of the first order, according to intelligence informers, and led an organization that transported tonnes of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico with the United States and Canada as the final destinations.

“He did not operate in isolation. He was a strategic ally of the Sinaloa Cartel and played a key role in the massive distribution of drugs in North America. His network employed semitrailers to cross borders, moving hundreds of millions of dollars and leaving behind a trail of violence, including orders to assassinate witnesses.”

The classification of Wedding as a “logistics operator” and as a “strategic ally” of the cartel is a more nuanced view than descriptions by Patel, who alleged Wedding was a member of the Sinaloa Cartel and a narco of historic proportions.

“He went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times. He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar,” Patel alleged.

Wedding is now in U.S. custody, denying the allegations and facing the judicial process that might eventually uncloak the mystery of his arrest.

The FBI, Mexico’s officials, and Global Affairs Canada did not reply to requests for further comment and details prior to deadline.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

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