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July 8th, 2023 
Awake Goy 
Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores (l), who US authorities say was killed by Bryant Rivera (r). Credit: Acosta Flores’s family (L) and the US Criminal complaint (R).
The American man met the women at a popular strip club in Tijuana. They were young, beautiful and worked as dancers. He went out regularly with one woman. He took another on a Valentine’s Day date. He paid a third to accompany him to a hotel. Then, Mexican authorities allege, he brutally murdered them.
In December, Baja California Attorney General Iván Carpio Sánchez said the man had “violent and psychopathic behavior” and compared him to Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history.
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For more than a year, the womens’ families grieved, their pain deepened by the fact that the suspect appeared to disappear without a trace. Then, on July 6, U.S. authorities arrested the suspect nearly two years after he allegedly began his killing spree. They identified him as Bryant Rivera of Downey, Calif. Witnesses described him as around 30 years old, five feet six inches tall with light brown skin and an acne-scarred face.
Although Mexican authorities have labeled Rivera a serial killer and implicated him in the murder of three women, U.S. authorities sought his arrest solely on charges that he murdered 20-year-old Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores in January 2022. Mexico is seeking Rivera’s extradition.
“The United States understands that Mexico may add additional charges when it submits the formal request for extradition,” according to the June 29 complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office before a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles.
The complaint, seeking a provisional arrest warrant, was unsealed following Rivera’s capture and lays out the evidence against him for Acosta’s murder.
Rivera and Acosta met at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club on January 24, 2022, according to the complaint. The club is one of Mexico’s most well-known strip clubs and its website boasts “intimate VIP pleasures, amazing stage shows, hot tubs and shower shows.” Americans often cross the border to frequent the club, and limousines are known to ferry U.S. clients from the port of entry. Acosta worked as a dancer and sex worker.
At 10:11 p.m., Rivera and Acosta entered the Cascadas hotel, which is located above the club and owned by the same company. As a safety measure, Acosta sent a text to her mother indicating she would be with a client in room 404 for 30 minutes.
At 11:49, Rivera left the room alone and walked down the stairs out of the hotel. Thirteen minutes later, a surveillance recording at the San Ysidro Port of Entry captured Rivera entering the U.S. by foot. The hotel security camera showed no signs of anyone else entering or exiting the hotel room.
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Around midnight, Acosta’s mother went to the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club to look for her daughter, who had stopped answering her phone. A manager at the club told her that Acosta was “probably still busy.” Acosta’s boyfriend arrived at the bar around 3 a.m., also convinced something was wrong. A manager at Hotel Cascadas refused to search for Acosta because the room had been rented out until 1 p.m. the following day, according to the U.S. attorney’s complaint.
On January 25 shortly before noon, hotel personnel entered room 404 and found Acosta’s body. She died from strangulation, according to an autopsy.
Just three weeks later, Rivera murdered another dancer he met at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club, Carpio Sánchez alleges.
Elizabeth Martínez Cigarroa, 25, went missing after going on a Valentine’s Day date with an American man she met at the club. Her body was found on February 17, 2022 in the back of her abandoned truck with obvious signs of violence.
Rivera is also suspected in the 2021 murder of a young woman who also worked as a sex worker and briefly at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club, according to Zeta Tijuana. Rivera had been a regular client of the woman’s until August 30, 2021, when he reportedly made a date with her at a motel in Tijuana. Her body was found days later in a trash bin. She had been strangled and beaten to death.
Investigators haven’t ruled out other victims.
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