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U.S. Offers $10 Million Reward for Sinaloa Cartel Kingpins Operating in Baja California
San Diego, CA – The U.S. State Department announced a significant bounty on Thursday, offering up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of two brothers identified as key leaders of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, specifically operating in the Baja California region, which includes the bustling border city of Tijuana.
The substantial reward coincides with a new indictment unsealed against Rene Arzate Garcia, 42, known by the chilling moniker “La Rana” (“The Frog”). Initially facing drug charges in San Diego, the superseding indictment now includes grave accusations of conspiracy, narcoterrorism, and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Authorities are offering $5 million each for details on the whereabouts of Rene Arzate Garcia and his older brother, Alfonso Arzate Garcia, 52, who goes by “Aquiles” (“Achilles”). Both brothers are currently at large.
The State Department emphasized the brothers’ critical role in the cartel’s operations, stating, “As controllers of a critical trafficking node in Tijuana at the U.S. border, the Arzate-Garcia brothers have become key essential components of the cartel’s command-and-control structure. Their control of the Tijuana Plaza offers the Sinaloa Cartel a tactical advantage in maintaining dominance over rival organizations, ensuring no interruption to the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere.”
Court documents paint a grim picture of Rene Arzate-García’s activities, detailing his involvement in importing massive quantities of illicit drugs into the United States. The Justice Department further describes him as “known to be extremely violent,” and actively participating in “enforcement operations, such as kidnappings and executions, for the Sinaloa Cartel.”
DEA Administrator Terrance Cole did not mince words, describing Rene Arzate-García as “a ruthless Sinaloa Cartel plaza boss who is accused of exploiting U.S. ports of entry to flood our nation with fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine.”
This isn’t the first time the U.S. government has targeted the Arzate-Garcia brothers. In 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned them, alongside another fugitive dubbed “The Anthrax Monkey,” for their alleged deep involvement in the production and trafficking of fentanyl.
The California-Mexico border has long been a volatile battleground, particularly between the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, as they vie for control of lucrative smuggling routes.
The announcement of these rewards comes just four days after a major victory for Mexican authorities: the killing of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” the formidable leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. “El Mencho,” who had a $15 million U.S. bounty on his head, represented the Mexican government’s most significant achievement in its concerted efforts to dismantle powerful drug cartels, a key objective for the Trump administration. Officials reported that “El Mencho’s” capture was the culmination of military investigators’ surveillance of one of the cartel leader’s romantic partners.