Slain cartel boss 'The General' provided Ryan Wedding with fake police ID to evade capture, U.S. alleges

Résumé détaillé

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mexican judge accused of taking $2M bribe to free Ryan Wedding's right-hand man

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.

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