He rose through the Milenio Cartel, earned El Mencho’s trust and eventually built his own operation, which has been linked to extortion, killings and drug trafficking.
Mexican federal forces detained Rafael Álvarez Ayala, known as “R2,” in Zapopan, Jalisco, after a shootout in which he was wounded. Authorities describe him as a senior figure in Los Rs, a cell of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) active in Jalisco and Michoacán. Milenio says 19 other people were with him at the time. The supplied account does not say whether any of them were arrested.
The operation involved the Mexican Navy, its Naval Special Operations Unit, the federal Security and Citizen Protection Secretariat and Army special forces. Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch credited Mexico’s National Intelligence Center and information shared by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with helping locate Álvarez Ayala. The Federal Security Cabinet said he was taken to a hospital after the exchange of gunfire. The account gives no further details about his condition.
Álvarez Ayala was wanted under two warrants: one issued by the First Criminal Court in Apatzingán, Michoacán, for aggravated homicide, and another for extradition to the United States. In August, the U.S. Justice Department announced that a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., had indicted Rafael and his brother Ramón on charges involving a conspiracy to supply cocaine and methamphetamine for import into the United States and firearms offenses related to that alleged conspiracy. The extradition warrant does not mean he has been transferred to U.S. custody.
The arrest also matters to the investigation into the killing of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo. Mexican authorities allege that Ramón Álvarez Ayala, known as “R1,” helped plan the November 2025 assassination. After Ramón’s July 30 arrest in Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco, García Harfuch identified Rafael as his likely successor in Los Rs. The supplied account does not identify the victim named in Rafael’s homicide warrant or establish that the warrant is for Manzo’s killing. Authorities also accuse Los Rs of extorting business owners and avocado growers, among other crimes.
It is not the brothers’ first arrest. In September 2012, simultaneous military operations took Ramón into custody in Guadalajara and Rafael and their brother Jesús Santiago into custody in Zapopan. Ramón and Rafael were released after being acquitted in 2022. That earlier case is separate from the warrants Milenio describes in the new operation.
