FBI Director Kash Patel has dug himself into a hole after boasting on social media that U.S agents helped grab an alleged cocaine kingpin in a cross-border raid—apparently giving ammunition to the man’s defense.
Ryan Wedding, 44, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder now accused of running a vast cartel-linked cocaine pipeline, was captured in Mexico last week after years of allegedly hiding out under the protection of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Patel, 45, claimed on X last Friday that the bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team “executed with precision, discipline, and total professionalism alongside our Mexican partners to bring Ryan James Wedding back to face justice.”
The same day, Patel—dubbed ‘Keystone Kash’ for a string of law enforcement blunders—was ridiculed for a chaotic airport-tarmac news conference where he shouted over jet engines and bizarrely branded Wedding a “modern-day El Chapo.”
Patel’s very public announcements should never have happened, however, because the raid was meant to be kept secret, according to The Wall Street Journal. Now, Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, is questioning whether his client’s rights were violated in a tease of a potential defense.
Colombo told the Daily Beast: “With enforcement actions against Nicolas Maduro and my client, Mr. Wedding, the Trump Administration has shown a bold new willingness to pursue fugitives beyond our borders.
“But bold action does not suspend due process, and the legality of Mr. Wedding’s arrest and the circumstances surrounding his apprehension will be subject to judicial review before the District Court.”
Patel’s disclosures have also reportedly rankled Mexican authorities, as Mexico bans foreign agents from taking part in operations on its soil, and its nationalist government is hypersensitive about U.S. incursions, the Journal reported, citing a U.S. official.
The country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, 63, has attempted to contain the blowback. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, she flatly denied U.S. involvement in the on-the-ground arrest and insisted American operatives face strict limits.
“I’m not going to get into a debate with the FBI director, nor do I want there to be a conflict,” she said, adding that U.S. officials had told Mexico it was a voluntary surrender.
She also pointed to an Instagram image purportedly showing Wedding standing outside the decommissioned U.S. Embassy with a caption saying he was turning himself in.
The post was captioned, “To the media and my followers: After seeking guarantees for a fair process, I have decided to voluntarily turn myself in to the authorities,” and thanked his wife and supporters for their messages, adding: “I am fully confident that the truth will come to light and set me free.”
Colombo has blown up that version, however.
“He was arrested, he didn’t surrender,” he told reporters outside federal court in Santa Ana, California, noting that any unilateral U.S. snatch on foreign soil would understandably alarm the government involved.
Colombo also stressed that his client has pleaded not guilty to 17 federal counts, including murder.
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, has also tried to dampen the blunder by describing Wedding’s surrender as the result of “pressure applied by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement working in close coordination and cooperation,” according to the Journal.
The dispute comes as Trump has threatened land strikes against Mexican cartels and leaned on Sheinbaum to ramp up enforcement, slap tariffs on Chinese goods, and even put three planeloads of imprisoned drug bosses on U.S.-bound jets without formal extradition.
Inside the FBI, Patel’s latest gaffe is being treated as classic ‘Keystone Kash.’ The Beast began using the nickname—a dig that references the bumbling Keystone Cops of silent-movie fame—after he oversaw a string of avoidable fiascos and self-inflicted diplomatic wounds during his turbulent first year in the job.
Just one day before Patel’s Wedding whoopsie, it was reported that senior bureau officials complained he had blown a sensitive Five Eyes intelligence summit in the U.K. by demanding meetings at soccer games and on jet skis.
He also pushed to post a group photo from Windsor Castle that British partners had explicitly ordered him not to share, one senior FBI official told The New York Times.
That episode followed a drumbeat of reporting about Patel allegedly treating a $60 million FBI jet as his personal shuttle to watch his country-singer girlfriend perform and deploying FBI SWAT protection details around her shows.
Conservative media allies have also turned on him over high-profile blunders, including his premature claims of a suspect in custody for the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and a Brown University shooting investigation that saw a “person of interest” paraded, then quietly released.
When asked for comment, the White House referred the Beast to the FBI, whose spokesman Ben Williamson said the Journal report was “totally false,” and called the operation “a tremendous success in collaboration with our Mexican partners.”
He noted that Wedding’s arrest was the Bureau’s sixth capture of those on its ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list in a year, saying: “You don’t get there without strong leadership and partnerships.”
The Beast also contacted Mexico’s Department of Foreign Affairs, but it did not immediately respond.
