California man arrested in connection with string of sex worker murders in Mexico, awaiting extradition

U.S. federal authorities have arrested a California man accused of killing three sex workers in Tijuana, said Mexican authorities on Friday.

Bryan Rivera, 30, was arrested at his parent’s home in Los Angeles County on Thursday. U.S. agents were acting at the request of Mexican law enforcement. The Downey, Calif. resident is expected to be extradited to Mexico in the coming days, according to NBC News.

Described as a “serial killer” by Baja California’s Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio, Rivera was arrested in connection with the killing of 20-year-old Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores early last year.

Flores was last seen on security camera video entering a hotel room in Tijuana on Jan. 24, 2022, according to the criminal complaint. Prosecutors said the room had been rented by Rivera.

Her lifeless body was found the next day. An autopsy later determined she had been asphyxiated.

According to Carpio, Rivera is believed to have killed a total of three women in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego. He “will now face justice in Baja California,” Carpio told reporters in a news conference Friday.

Rivera is charged in Mexico with “femicide,” a term defined in the country’s penal code as a type of homicide in which a woman is murdered because of her gender.

His arrest was the result of a collaborative effort involving the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Marshalls Service and the FBI, which yielded “highly positive results,” Carpio posted on Facebook.

“We will apply all the legal and technological instruments necessary to find those responsible for any crime, particularly those considered to be based on gender,” he said. “We will seek to bring all those criminals to justice, even when they try to evade it by hiding in another country.”