The motorcycle racing community was burst wide open last week with the release of images taken in a Mexico City garage. Inside that dark, dusty warehouse, drug enforcement agents from the US, Mexico and Canada had parked dozens of motorcycles reportedly belonging to wanted drug lord and former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding. These were no ordinary streetbikes, but several championship-winning MotoGP racebikes. The assembled machines resembled the first floor of one of the world’s more respected motorsports museums with dazzling, high-tech motorcycles previously ridden by luminaries including Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez, all shoved together as if some petulant child grew tired of playing with these 300-horsepower toys. So far, authorities have been relatively tight-lipped about how a single man could have possibly amassed a motorcycle collection worth an estimated $40 million and just how these very noticeable machines may have avoided detection over the years.
The images reveal more than just Grand Prix-winning two-wheelers, but genuine historic mounts including some ridden by AMA and World Superbike champ Scott Russell, a few rare, vintage bevel-drive Ducati twins from the 1970s and strangely enough, vintage two-stroke racers that bear the distinctive livery of teams that the aforementioned Rossi campaigned in his youth during the 1990s. The amassing of so many high-end pieces of motorsports memorabilia presents so many tough questions: for instance, with the re-sale of Moto GP motorcycles closely regulated by the manufacturers and racing’s governing body, Dorna, how did a globally- known criminal manage to approach the likes of Rossi and Marquez to offer cash for their team’s heirlooms? Were they aware of whom their bikes were being sold to, or were shell corporations and secret buyers involved in what was clearly an attempt to launder some of the suspected billions that Wedding’s cartel has amassed though illegal narcotics sales?
Lucky for Cafe Racer magazine’s readers, staff writer Anthony Conroy is hard at work sorting out the who’s, where’s and how’s behind this amazing piece of real crime news. I first met Conroy when we were both employed as reporters at a Pittsburgh newspaper some 30 years ago and his illustrious journalism career as an editor, reporter and investigative news specialist, makes him a much-valued part of our team. If anyone can sort out this sordid, crazy story, he’s the man.
Come CRM’s February/March issue, we’ll have some interesting details about Mr. Wedding’s extraordinary motorcycle collection, which we understand may end up tragically crushed or destroyed if the three investigation nations can’t agree on a solution. It’s a potentially tragic outcome for fans of motorcycle racing and two-wheeled history and with Wedding still at large and facing a $15 million bounty for his whereabouts and capture, the ending is, at this point, anybody’s guess. Stay tuned and pick up the next issue of Cafe Racer magazine come February 9.
