One of the most wanted fugitives in the US has been caught two decades later – working as a local police officer in Mexico.
Antonio ‘El Diablo’ Riano, who was on the run after a 2004 deadly shooting outside an Ohio bar, was arrested in his hometown of Zapotitlan Palmas on Thursday, according to the US Marshals Service.
Riano, now 72, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Benjamin Becarra, 25.
‘This arrest is the result of the ongoing sharing of information between the agencies and the determination of the investigators who refused to give up on this case,’ stated Michael Black, who is US Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio.
Riano allegedly fled the US after the shooting on December 19, 2004.
He and Becarra reportedly got into a fight at the Roundhouse bar in Hamilton and moved the altercation outside, where CCTV recorded the suspect allegedly shooting the victim in the face.
Riano was allegedly also recorded purchasing bullets at a Walmart hours before the shooting, and the firearm used was discovered under floorboards in his home, WKRC reported.
‘We already had a direct indictment against him,’ detective Mark Henson, who worked the case, told the TV station. ‘It was just a matter of waiting to find him.’
Riano was listed as one of the ‘Most Wanted’ by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office and was even featured in the TV series America’s Most Wanted in 2005.
He was apprehended in Mexico City and flown to Cincinnati. US authorities took him into custody at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and asked him why he chose to become a cop.
‘I wanted to help the people of Mexico,’ Riano replied in Spanish, according to WKRC.
Asked if he killed Becarra, Riano said: ‘No, I did not.’
Riano is being held in Butler County Jail while awaiting his court proceedings.
The US Marshal Service’s violent fugitive task forces works with state and local law enforcement agencies ‘to apprehend the area’s most dangerous fugitives’, stated Black.
Butler County prosecutor Michael Gmoser stated that apprehending Riano ‘would not be possible without the cooperation and due diligence’ of county investigators, the US Marshal Service and the US Department of Justice.
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