Fugitive gang member helped Olympian run drug cartel and evade arrest, feds allege
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Set us as preferred A South Los Angeles gang member on the run in Mexico helped Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding run a billion-dollar drug trafficking cartel and helped Wedding avoid law enforcement by feeding the cartel boss information from U.S.and Mexican authorities, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.Roberto Gomez, 51, from the Central-Alameda area, was charged with multiple felonies, including one count of conspiracy to possess and distribute controlled substances, one count of conspiracy to import controlled substances, three counts of accessory after the fact and one count of attempting to transact a deal with a designated narcotics trafficker.
Federal prosecutors allege Gomez, also known as “Rob Flores,” “Fat Boy,” Fats” and “Rooster,” had developed connections with the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels and with law enforcement officials on both sides of the border.Gomez had fled to Mexico in 2000 after he was indicted with two counts of second-degree burglary, according to a news release from the U.S.
attorney’s office.Then in 2018, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles handed down another indictment against Gomez, charging him with drug trafficking and money laundering.
World & Nation Luiz Benítez Alcántara was overseeing extradition proceedings in Mexico in 2024 involving a Canadian facing drug trafficking charges linked to Olympian Ryan Wedding.During his time in Mexico, federal prosecutors allege, Gomez acted as an intermediary supplier of narcotics to multiple drug organizations, including Wedding’s.Gomez remains on the lam in Mexico, officials said in a statement.
Wedding was arrested in Mexico in January after federal authorities alleged the former Olympic snowboarder had become the head of a drug trafficking organization.Wedding had been on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wante...