A Secret FBI Bust Nabbed an Alleged Drug Lord—and Rocked Ties With Mexico

Long protected by Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Ryan Wedding suddenly had no options. By the time security forces caught up with him in Mexico last week, the officials said, members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team were also involved. Weeks earlier, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s elite, combat-trained unit participated in the capture of Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro in his heavily fortified Caracas compound.

Law-enforcement officials made contact with Wedding—presumed to be armed and dangerous—and, in an intense negotiation, reminded him that his associates had been captured and millions of dollars of his assets had been seized, some of the officials said. Eventually, said his lawyer, Anthony Colombo, FBI agents handcuffed Wedding, who was then transported to California and pleaded not guilty in federal court to 17 felony charges, including murder.

The FBI’s involvement in the Jan. 22 operation was intended to be a closely guarded secret, a U.S. official said. Mexico’s laws ban foreign agents from being physically present in law-enforcement operations on its soil and taking part in detentions or raids. The nationalist ruling party in Mexico is particularly sensitive to foreign interference. But on Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel dropped a bombshell on X. “Our FBI HRT teams executed with precision, discipline, and total professionalism alongside our Mexican partners to bring Ryan James Wedding back to face justice,” he said, using his elite squad’s initials.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum tried to defuse a potentially explosive situation on Tuesday. She challenged Patel’s description of events, noting that there was no U.S. involvement in the operation and that U.S. agents in Mexico have clear limitations defined by law.

“I’m not going to get into a debate with the FBI director, nor do I want there to be a conflict,” Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference on Tuesday. “What they, the U.S. authorities, told the Mexican authorities is that it was a voluntary surrender.”

She also referenced an image on Instagram of Wedding purportedly standing outside the decommissioned U.S. Embassy building posted on Friday with a caption saying he was turning himself in. In response to journalists’ questions on whether the images were generated by AI, she said that there was no indication by social-media companies that the photo was fake.

Colombo, Wedding’s attorney, has disputed Sheinbaum’s version of events, saying that it isn’t true that Wedding turned himself in at the embassy and that U.S. agents absolutely were involved. “He was arrested, he didn’t surrender,” Colombo said.

“If the U.S. government is unilaterally going into a sovereign country and apprehending somebody, you can understand the concern that sovereign entity might have,” Colombo told reporters outside the courthouse on Tuesday.

Wedding’s surrender “was a direct result of pressure applied by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement working in close coordination and cooperation,” said Ronald Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

The circumstances surrounding Wedding’s arrest punctuate a moment of high tension between Washington and Mexico City after the U.S. attack on Venezuela earlier this month. Since then President Trump has threatened to conduct land strikes against Mexican cartels, a move that set off alarms among senior Mexican officials.

Sheinbaum confirmed the details of The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Thursday, but also said, without clarifying, that Mexico doesn’t allow joint operations with the U.S. on Mexican soil.

“We collaborate, they give us information, we give them information, but the operations in our territory are carried out by Mexican forces,” she said shortly after having a telephone conversation with Trump. “We tell President Trump this every time, and they’ve seen that we’re making very good progress.”

The FBI is now mapping out more targets across Mexico and aiming to do joint operations with Mexican forces against top drug-trafficking targets, some of the Mexican and U.S. officials said, in the latest signal that Trump is exerting pressure on Mexico to allow the U.S. to target drug cartels in the country.

Patel himself was in Mexico City last week, conducting a high-profile visit and quietly working with Mexican partners throughout the operation to arrest Wedding, U.S. officials said.