A Mexican citizen residing in San Diego was arrested in Miami in connection with a murder-for-hire plot over an unpaid debt, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
Marcos Arturo Kleiman Trollán, 40, was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents after investigators say he hired a hitman to murder a man who owed him money.
Kleiman, who was a legal permanent resident of the United States, operated a registered financial services company, MoneyFlip LLC, that offered cross-border currency exchange services.
Kleiman was identified as a suspected money launderer during an ongoing investigation into financial services companies in San Diego and Imperial counties, the Department of Justice said in its news release.
Previously, he owned and operated his financial services company under the name MXN Financial LLC, which operated as an international foreign exchange wholesaler and exchange house.
Investigators suspect that Kleiman used his business to conduct cross-border currency transactions that evaded reporting requirements under federal law and to launder money from drug sales funneled through money services businesses at the border.
Undercover Department of Homeland Security agents, posing as drug traffickers, contacted Kleiman in February 2026 to ask him to convert U.S. dollars, allegedly from drug sales, into cryptocurrency, according to the Justice Department press release. Kleiman indicated that he knew the origin of the money.
"Give me the main details. I need to know if... what you have is clean or dirty money," Kleiman reportedly told the agents. “I’m not scared, man.”
Kleiman created an email account and shared its password with undercover Department of Homeland Security agents, allowing them to communicate covertly by writing messages to the account's drafts folder instead of sending emails, according to the Justice Department. During these conversations, Kleiman reportedly asked the undercover agents if they could help him recover an unpaid debt from a Mexican businessman and kill him.
Kleiman reportedly told agents he would pay $40,000 to kidnap and murder the man, starting with two initial payments of $5,000 in cash.
Kleiman made a $5,000 cash deposit to one of the agents in San Diego in May, according to the news release. The second deposit was agreed upon in early July, after one of the undercover agents told him that the victim would be left dead on the side of the road whether he paid the debt or not.
Agents showed Kleiman three photographs and a video purportedly showing the “victim” after she had been captured, tortured and murdered. One of the photographs showed a man lying in a field with a white banner covering his body that said: “For being a rat.”
One of the agents told Kleiman that they should get paid. According to the Department of Justice statement, Kleiman arranged for the payment of the remaining $30,000 from the murder-for-hire service, both in cash and to an undercover agent's cryptocurrency wallet.
In total, Kleiman converted approximately $750,000 US dollars into cryptocurrency, which was ultimately transferred to an undercover agent's cryptocurrency wallet, according to the Justice Department statement. Kleiman charged a 10% commission for these transactions.
The Trump administration has taken a tough stance against such businesses on the U.S.-Mexico border, subjecting them to greater scrutiny and stricter reporting requirements to combat cartel money laundering.
However, some financial services business owners say the new requirements are too onerous. The investigation into Kleiman was part of an interagency collaboration that included the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Imperial County Sheriff's Office and the Brawley Police Department, among others.
