![\"Photograph](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ktxl_articles_604\/524975e372389f2783f7a030c72e8f7c.jpeg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\nA photograph depicting the supposed murder victim lying dead in a field with a banner covering his body with the Spanish phrase “Por ser Rata,” which translates to “For being a thief.” (Credit: U.S. Department of Justice)<\/p>\n
Kleiman agreed to pay $40,000 to kidnap and murder the man, delivering an initial $5,000 “deposit” via a third party to an agent in San Diego in May, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
“Then, in early July of 2026, one of the undercover agents asked Kleiman for a second $5,000 deposit to ‘reserve the savages’ and told Kleiman ‘whether [the victim] pays or not he will be left dead on the side of the road,'” prosecutors said in the news release. “Kleiman responded by telling the undercover agent, ‘I will get those 5 ready for you in 2-3 weeks.'”<\/p>\n
Finally, on Tuesday the undercover agents showed Kleiman three photographs and a video that were staged to show Kleiman the victim “captured, tortured and killed,” federal prosecutors said. An agent told Kleiman they “they already killed the guy, so those people need to get paid.”<\/p>\n
“Okay,” Kleiman responded, according to court documents. “Count on \u2026 count on it.”<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, he delivered another $5,000 payment to the agents and sent about $25,000 to a cryptocurrency wallet to close out the alleged murder-for-hire deal.<\/p>\n
And on Thursday, Kleiman was taken into custody by Homeland Security Investigations agents and Homeland Security Task Force partners in Miami.<\/p>\n
Kleiman, 40, was charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(FOX40.COM) \u2014 A California businessman is in custody for hiring a hitman to murder someone over an unpaid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,15609,8731,7334,167576,167575,35628],"class_list":["post-419186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-federal-agents","tag-federal-investigation","tag-federal-prosecutors","tag-kleiman","tag-marcos-arturo-kleiman-tronllan","tag-undercover-agents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Photograph](\"https:\/\/fox40.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2026\/07\/Murder-for-Hire.png\")
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