On this date, July 9, in 2000, FBI most wanted fugitive Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza was arrested for the murder of an undercover federal agent six years earlier in Arizona.
Vasquez-Mendoza was the head of a gang that owned several Mexican methamphetamine labs and smuggled the drug into the United States. In 1994, he hatched a plan to kill and rob undercover Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Richard E. Fass of $160,000 used to buy methamphetamine.
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Fass was shot five times as he begged for his life. Police arrested three suspects, but the ringleader hid out across the border. The FBI placed Vasquez-Mendoza on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list and offered a $2.2 million reward.
The manhunt was one of the most intense in recent U.S./Mexican law enforcement history. Authorities arrested Vasquez-Mendoza of Mexico City. Mexico resisted his extradition for five years, until the United States agreed to take the death penalty off the table.
He was transferred to Arizona, convicted and sentenced in 2006 to life in prison.
