SEATTLE - Twenty years after being charged with first-degree murder, a U.S. fugitive known as "El Diablo" (The Devil) was captured in Mexico. Antonio Riaño was returned to the United States on Aug. 1 after authorities found him in the small town of Zapotitlán Palmas, in Oaxaca, where they say he had been working as a local police officer. Riaño was wanted for a deadly shooting outside an Ohio bar 20 years ago.
Riaño was listed as one of the Butler County Sheriff's Office "Most Wanted" and even profiled on the America's Most Wanted television series in 2005. The charges stem from a December 2004 shooting in suburban Cincinnati, when Riaño fled the state and then the country after allegedly shooting and killing 25-year-old Benjamin Becerra.
Witnesses say Riaño and Becerra got into an argument at the Roundhouse Bar in Hamilton, Ohio, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati. When the dispute moved outside, a surveillance camera allegedly showed Riaño fatally shooting Becerra in the face. Police said they also had a video of "El Diablo" buying bullets a few hours prior to the shooting at a local Walmart. The murder weapon was allegedly found beneath floorboards in Riaño's home, WKRC-TV reported.
According to police authorities, "El Diablo" first escaped to New Jersey and then later to his hometown of Oaxaca, Mexico. Butler County law enforcement, along with the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs teamed up with law enforcement partners in Mexico to secure the arrest and extradition of Riaño. He was flown to Cincinnati and transported to the Butler County Jail, where he remains pending court proceedings.
"We had all the evidence we needed gathered," Mark Henson, a detective who was on the case in 2004, told WKRC-TV. "We already had a direct indictment against him. It was just a matter of waiting to find him," Henson added.
The local marshal's office worked for three months with the U.S. Department of Justice, the American Consulate and the Mexican government before they could arrest Riaño in April outside of the police station where he was working. They then had to work with the Department of Homeland Security to approve the extradition, a process that took another four months.
As Riaño was taken into custody, a WKRC-TV reporter asked him why he became a police officer. He replied in Spanish "I wanted to help the people of Mexico."
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