U.S. indictment of fugitive Roberto Gomez over alleged support to Canadian ex-Olympian Ryan James Wedding, Digi Mart USA News (Central District of California): The U.S. Department of Justice announced on November 10, 2026, that a federal grand jury indicted Roberto Gomez, 51, an alleged member of the 38th Street gang and a fugitive living in Mexico, for helping Canadian former Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding operate a drug trafficking network valued at $1 billion and obtain confidential information from law enforcement agencies to evade capture.
The six-count indictment was filed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
It charges Gomez with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to import controlled substances, three counts of accessory after the fact, and attempting to conduct transactions with a specially designated narcotics trafficker. If convicted on all charges, he would face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison and a maximum of life imprisonment.
The DOJ noted that an indictment contains allegations and that every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
According to the indictment, Gomez, a U.S. citizen from the Central-Alameda area of south Los Angeles, fled Los Angeles County to Mexico after being charged in 2000 with two counts of second-degree robbery in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
In January 2018, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged him with drug trafficking and money laundering, and he is considered a fugitive in both criminal cases. The indictment alleges that while in Mexico he met and communicated with leaders of organizations designated as terrorists by the U.S.
government, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and cultivated relationships with people who had access to confidential information from Mexican and U.S. agencies.
That information included details of police operations, arrests, drug seizures, execution of court orders and filing of criminal charges, which Gomez allegedly passed to his co-conspirators, including Wedding, 45, a former Olympic athlete and Canadian citizen whom U.S. authorities accuse of ordering several murders.
From 2016 to 2026, the defendant allegedly served as an intermediary supplier of narcotics for various transnational criminal organizations, including Wedding’s, by moving cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl toward Mexico by air and sea through Central America, with onward ground transport to the United States and Canada.
Between October 2024 and January 2026, Gomez allegedly helped Wedding avoid arrest, trial and punishment in the United States. In the same period, he allegedly tried to broker the sale of approximately 1,000 pounds, equivalent to 453.6 kilograms, of methamphetamine between a supplier and Wedding, whom the U.S.
government designated as a specially designated narcotics trafficker, for about $550,000 paid in cryptocurrency.
In a related case, federal prosecutors made public a two-count indictment against Edgar Aaron Vazquez Alvarado, 42, alias “El General,” who the DOJ says was killed by gunfire from Mexican police. According to the indictment, Vazquez Alvarado presented himself as founder and leader of El Cártel Nuevo Imperio, a criminal organization operating mainly in Mexico City, and trafficked cocaine for Wedding’s criminal enterprise.
He allegedly provided members of that structure with rotating codes, updated almost daily, which cocaine transporters in Mexico repeated to police and military personnel at checkpoints to pass through without inspection.
The indictment also states that Vazquez Alvarado paid Mexican public officials to delay criminal investigations, destroy and manipulate incriminating evidence, and secure dismissal of charges against members of the organization. Between October 2024 and January 2026, he allegedly helped Wedding evade detection by U.S.
law enforcement agencies.
The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with participation from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and support from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Buffalo.
Both cases are part of the National Security Task Force initiative created under Executive Order 14159. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S.
Attorneys Lyndsi Allsop and Joshua J. Lee of the Transnational Organized Crime Section, with assistance from the DOJ Office of International Affairs.
