The U.S. is offering an $8 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of two brothers accused of running a “brutal Mexican cartel” that has been “poisoning Americans” with fentanyl and other illicit drugs trafficked across the border. 

Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, the co-leaders of the La Nueva Familia Michoacana (LNFM), were charged by a federal grand jury in Georgia on Tuesday, with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl knowing those controlled substances would be imported into the United States, among other counts, according to the Justice Department. Both fugitives are believed to be in Mexico. 

“President Trump has promised to crack down on the flow of deadly drugs into our country,” F. Cartwright Weiland, a Senior Bureau Official in the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, said in a statement.  

“Working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, the Department of State is delivering on that promise by offering rewards totaling up to $8 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of the Hurtado brothers,” he added. 

Images of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga, who are accused of participating in a conspiracy to manufacture cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl and conspiracy to import and distribute the drugs in the United States, are displayed during a news conference on Tuesday, April 15, in Atlanta.  (AP/Brynn Anderson)

A reward of up to $5 million is being offered by the State Department for the capture of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga, while a $3 million figure is being offered for the detainment of Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga. 

The indictments against the brothers were returned in September 2024 and were recently unsealed, according to the Justice Department. 

“In addition… the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced new sanctions against Johnny and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga and their siblings, LNFM members Ubaldo Hurtado Olascoaga and Adita Hurtado Olascoaga,” the agency also said. 

An $8 million reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga and Jose Alfredo Hurtado Olascoaga (AP/Brynn Anderson)

“The indictment of senior leaders of this brutal Mexican cartel and subsequent OFAC sanctions makes one thing clear, we are coming after these criminal networks and utilizing every weapon in our arsenal,” said Special Agent in Charge Steven N. Schrank of Homeland Security Investigations in Georgia and Alabama.