The Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is offering up to $10 million for information leading to the arrests of brothers leading the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations in Tijuana.
René Arzate-García, also known as “La Rana,” and his brother Alfonso Arzate-García, known as “Aquiles,” have controlled the cartel’s Tijuana arm for 15 years and have maintained authority through “violence, strategic alliances, and deep local influence, including political and police corruption,” the department said. A reward of up to $5 million for each brother has been posted.
An indictment against René Arzate-García charges him with “narcoterrorism, conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, material support to a foreign terrorist organization, international conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana, and money laundering,” the department added.
“Foreign terrorist organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel have spent decades poisoning our children and committing acts of unimaginable violence against innocent civilians — no longer under President Trump,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on the charges. “This latest indictment, which follows the landmark conviction of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder ‘El Mayo’ on American soil, is a key development in this Department of Justice’s ongoing campaign to permanently dismantle these cartels and deliver American justice to their cowardly leaders.”
President Trump’s Treasury Department sanctioned the Sinaloa Cartel in March 2025. Both brothers were designated as individuals involved in global drug trades under the Biden-era Executive Order 14059, “Imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade.” Last year, the Trump administration also designated the cartel as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).
