Aquiles Cell Arrested with Drugs and Weapons

On the night of October 4, at approximately 8:39 p.m., five individuals—four men and one woman—were detained by officers from the State Citizen Security Force (FESC) assigned to Tijuana. They were identified as April Nicole Rodríguez Reyes (19, from Los Angeles, California), Felipe de Jesús Sifuentes Medina (21, born in Tijuana), Pedro López González (60, from Chihuahua), Manuel Alberto Ayala Bañuelos (52, born in Sinaloa), and Felipe de Jesús Cifuentes (55, from Tijuana).

FESC officers were patrolling Lorenzo Barcelata Street in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood when they spotted the group of five. Upon realizing they were being watched, Felipe de Jesús Sifuentes Medina threw a bag containing smaller packets of what officers identified as cocaine. The officers immediately apprehended the group and confiscated the drugs found in their possession:

Felipe Sifuentes Medina was found with “five small bags, all containing cocaine,” while Nicole Rodríguez, Pedro López, Manuel Ayala, and Felipe Sifuentes Pacheco were found with “two small bags, all containing cocaine”; following this seizure, the five individuals were taken into custody on drug-related charges.

According to investigators, it was Felipe de Jesús Sifuentes Medina who, upon being discovered, attempted to dispose of the drugs in his possession; he subsequently told his captors that he was a member of the Sinaloa Cartel—specifically the “Los Aquiles” cell. This cell comprises individuals working criminally for Alfonso Arzate García (“El Aquiles”), a man for whom the FBI (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation) has offered a $5 million reward for his capture, as well as for information leading to the arrest of his brother, René Arzate García (“La Rana”), and Juan José Ponce Félix (“El Ruso”). All three were included in the organizational charts of the Sinaloa Cartel’s criminal and money-laundering network—released during the last week of September 2026 by the U.S. Treasury Department’s OFAC—which, for the first time, featured the images and names of Carlos Torres Torres and his brother Luis; the former is the ex-husband, and the latter the ex-brother-in-law, of Baja California Governor Marina Ávila Olmeda.

The officers who apprehended the five individuals also revealed that they are the suspected perpetrators behind the beheading of a person whose body parts were scattered—accompanied by threatening messages—across two separate incidents:

* “Incident 1474538/2026 at 19:04 hours: discovery of a severed head and a banner bearing a criminal message on Bellas Artes Street in the Garita de Otay neighborhood.”

* “Incident 1475152/2026 at 20:39 hours: discovery of a body wrapped in a carpet on José López Portillo Avenue, in front of number 246 in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood.”

Furthermore, the detainees reportedly revealed to the officers that the homicide and dismemberment took place “at a residence on Lorenzo Barcelata Street—a pink, single-story house with blue security bars; a small blue apartment located at the rear of the property is where the criminal act was committed. For reference, it is situated next to the house marked number 43 in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood.”

Additionally, they reported that their areas of criminal activity included the street where they were arrested—“Lorenzo Barcelata number 40 in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood, Sor Juana Street next to Samy’s grocery store, and the Oxxo Otay Línea”—and that they were responsible for “keeping the area clear of extortionists and rival cartels that extort or demand protection money from business owners, as well as managing drug sales in the Otay modules area.” Having been arrested in the act while in possession of the drugs, they were searched, and videos and images linking the cell to various murders and cases of body mutilation were found on their mobile phones. The five individuals were handed over to the State Attorney General’s Office.

Source: Zeta Tijuana