A 22-year-old man named as the driver of a vehicle that ran over and killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent as he and other suspected drug smugglers fled toward Mexico was identified yesterday as a Mexican national.
Jesus Navarro Montes was taken into custody Tuesday by Mexican authorities in the northern state of Sonora after a three-day international manhunt. His capture followed the death Saturday of Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar Jr., 32, who was killed as he tried to lay spike strips on a highway near the Imperial Sand Dunes in California, 20 miles west of Yuma, Ariz.
Agents from the Ministry of Public Security of Mexico and the state of Sonora’s police force arrested Mr. Navarro in the town of El Yaqui on a warrant issued by a district judge in Mexicali, Baja California, the Mexican Embassy in Washington said. He is charged with smuggling illegal aliens into the United States.
But the embassy said a preliminary investigation in the killing of the agent found that Mr. Navarro left the city of Mexicali and headed for the United States “driving a Hummer vehicle, presumably carrying drugs.” It said as Border Patrol agents tried to stop the vehicle, “Agent Aguilar was run down and Mr. Navarro fled the scene back to Mexican territory.”
Mr. Navarro previously had been detained and jailed for smuggling 10 illegal aliens into the U.S., and there also was a warrant for his arrest in Mexicali on alien-trafficking counts, the embassy said.
Mexican federal authorities in Baja California told reporters that information from the Navarro arrest had led them to three Mexicali homes, where they found materials for making fake U.S. immigration papers — blank documents, border-crossing cards, temporary visas and stamping machines to produce U.S. government seals.
A memorial service was held yesterday at the Yuma Civic Center for Agent Aguilar, a six-year Border Patrol veteran assigned to the agency’s Yuma sector office. He is survived by his wife and two children. More arrests are expected in the case.
Mexican authorities said they were awaiting an extradition request from the United States. Mexico does not extradite suspects who could face the death penalty, and first-degree murder of a federal officer is a capital offense.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had talked with Mexican Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino to “thank him for Mexico’s quick action” in locating and apprehending a suspected in the case.
“I applaud the government of Mexico for their investigative work and assistance. We will continue to work with Mexican authorities to investigate this heinous act, and pursue swift justice,” Mr. Chertoff said. “The murder of Agent Aguilar represents a tragic and outrageous example of border violence.”
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