At her Monday morning press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke about the arrest last week of Ryan Wedding, an alleged drug boss accused of overseeing a vast cocaine pipeline and numerous murders.
She doubled down on her government’s assertion that Wedding, a Canadian citizen, was not captured in a planned operation with the United States, but rather turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
Former Olympic snowboarder, wanted in US for trafficking, arrested in Mexico
However, the main evidence she presented to support that version of events was fabricated, according to CBC News, a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Later on Monday, Wedding — who is now in U.S. custody — pleaded not guilty to two criminal indictments, from separate federal grand juries in California in 2024 and 2025, CBC News reported.
Contradicting Sheinbaum, the suspect’s lawyer, Anthony Colombo, told reporters on Monday that his client “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. And I think that if there’s anyone in a position to know how his apprehension and arrest went down it’s his counsel,” he said.
“So those reports of what happened, that he surrendered, are completely inaccurate,” Colombo said.
“… Look, the Trump administration with the apprehension of [Nicolás] 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 U.S. government is unilaterally going into a sovereign country and apprehending someone, you can understand the concern that that sovereign entity might have. But he was apprehended,” the lawyer said.
Wedding’s next court appearance will be on Mar. 24, CBC News reported.
Sheinbaum: Ryan Wedding turned himself in at the US Embassy
A reporter asked Sheinbaum about the circumstances of the arrest of Wedding, who had reportedly been living in Mexico for over a decade and was allegedly protected by the Sinaloa Cartel.
Mexican authorities said on Friday that Wedding, a 44-year-old former Olympic snowboarder, turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City last Thursday, but U.S. authorities and some media reports contradicted that information.
In an article headlined “Inside the Dramatic Arrest of an Olympic Snowboarder Turned America’s Most Wanted,” Vanity Fair wrote that “the FBI worked with Mexican law enforcement officials who, on Thursday, in the middle of the night, apprehended Wedding.”
“After an intense negotiation, Wedding was later taken into U.S. custody by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team [HRT], the same team that captured Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela just weeks before,” the report stated.
Vanity Fair quoted FBI Director Kash Patel as saying that, “This was a complex, high-stakes operation with zero margin for error. I was on the ground with our team in Mexico and witnessed extraordinary teamwork, precision and trust between our agents and partners in Mexico.”
On Monday morning, Sheinbaum gave a very different account of Wedding’s arrest.
🚨La presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum aclaró que Ryan Wedding se presentó voluntariamente ante la Embajada de EEUU el jueves pasado.
Señaló que la prueba es la publicación hecha por el propio Wedding y subrayó que no hubo operativos conjuntos en México. pic.twitter.com/snvlnKc2jE
— Azucena Uresti (@azucenau) January 26, 2026
“This person of Canadian origin presented himself to the Embassy, turned himself in at the Embassy,” she said, adding that Wedding reasoned that doing so was a better option than remaining a fugitive.
The suspect, who Patel described as a “modern-day Pablo Escobar” and a “modern-day El Chapo,” was on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list before he was taken into custody. Patel shared Vanity Fair’s article on social media and wrote above it that “our FBI HRT teams executed with precision, discipline, and total professionalism alongside our Mexican partners to bring Ryan James Wedding back to face justice.”
For her part, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi wrote on social media on Friday morning that at her “direction, Department of Justice agents @FBI have apprehended yet another member of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List: Ryan Wedding, the onetime Olympian snowboarder-turned alleged violent cocaine kingpin.”
“Wedding was flown to the United States where he will face justice. This is a direct result of President Trump’s law-and-order leadership. Under @POTUS, criminals have no safe harbor. Director Patel has worked tirelessly to bring fugitives to justice. We are grateful to our incredible Ambassador Ron Johnson and the Mexican authorities for assisting us in this case,” she wrote.
Sheinbaum acknowledged that Patel was in Mexico when the arrest occurred, but told reporters that he was here for security meetings rather than the execution of an operation to capture Wedding.
She noted that Patel spoke about the arrest of the suspect in a “bilateral operation,” before stressing that Security Minister Omar García Harfuch “immediately denied” that it was the case.
“And then the United States ambassador himself denies it,” added Sheinbaum, referring to a statement issued by Ron Johnson that refers to “the surrender of Ryan Wedding.”
“This person turned himself in at the Embassy,” she stressed.
Sheinbaum subsequently said that the “best evidence” in support of Wedding having turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy came from the suspect himself.
She was referring to a post on Instagram by the account “bossryanw” that includes a photo that purports to show Wedding standing outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City prior to turning himself in.
View this post on Instagram
However, CBC News reported on Monday that it had determined that “the image was generated using artificial intelligence.”
The Canadian news organization also reported that the fake image “was posted to an Instagram account that falsely purported to belong to Wedding’s ‘representative.'”
CBC News reported last week that a review of the account found “multiple red flags suggesting an imposter has been posting images created using AI.”
The latest (and now sole) post to the account — most of which Sheinbaum interpreted into Spanish at her mañanera — reads: “To the media and my followers: After seeking guarantees for a fair process, I have decided to voluntarily turn myself in to the authorities. I thank my wife, @myriamcastt, for being my driving force, and @johnbilonog, who will be in charge of my legacy. Thank you for your messages this week; they gave me great comfort in taking this step. I am fully confident that the truth will come to light and set me free.”
Beneath that message in bold font was the following: “This message is being posted by a representative – the context of the photo is that Mr. Wedding walked to the United States Embassy in Mexico City on his own two feet.”
Sheinbaum said that the circumstances of Wedding’s arrest must be made “very clear” because “some” media commentators “love to go around saying the opposite.”
But “there are no joint operations in Mexico,” emphasized the president, a staunch defender of Mexican sovereignty.
“In other words, the U.S. agents [in Mexico], from the FBI or any other agency, know very clearly their limitations, which are established by the [Mexican] Constitution and by the National Security Law,” she said.
“What exists is coordination regarding information from both sides, but there are no joint operations in Mexico. We wouldn’t allow that, we do not agree with it. I have stated this personally to President Trump on several occasions,” Sheinbaum said.
Wedding’s arrest came a week after The New York Times reported that the United States was “intensifying pressure” on Mexico “to allow U.S. military forces to conduct joint operations to dismantle fentanyl labs inside the country.”
It came two days after the Mexican government sent 37 cartel figures to the U.S., and five days after Mexican and U.S. authorities announced the arrest in Pachuca, Hidalgo, of another “FBI ten most wanted fugitive,” Alejandro Rosales Castillo, who is accused of murdering a woman in North Carolina in 2016.
Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House just over a year ago, Mexico has been under increased pressure from the United States to do more to combat drug cartels and the narcotics they traffic to the U.S.
That pressure has only intensified in recent weeks, following the United States’ military operation in Venezuela and Trump’s assertion that the U.S. would imminently start “hitting” cartels on land.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)
