US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Chicago announced on Tuesday the deportation of a Mexican national, 34-year old Agustin Espinoza-Betancourt, who is wanted for committing murder in Morelos, Mexico in 1999.
Espinoza-Betancourt is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, which the Department of Justice describes as the “closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today.” The Red Notice states that Espinoza-Betancourt got into an altercation with his neighbors, a mother and son. He shot the son four times, killing him, and shot the mother twice as she attempted to protect her son.
ERO officers arrested Espinoza-Betancourt on June 21 in Indianapolis and turned him over to Mexican law enforcement authorities on October 7 at the Brownsville, Texas, Port of Entry. He faces up to 22 years in prison.
ICE records indicate that Espinoza-Betancourt illegally entered the United States in April 1999. ERO officers based in Indianapolis encountered Espinoza-Betancourt in May 2003 and he was ordered deported in absentia by a federal immigration judge in July 2003.
“The continued cooperation between the United States and the Mexican government results in such repatriations of foreign fugitives and improved public safety,” said Ricardo Wong, field office director for ERO Chicago. "International fugitives who think they can evade justice by fleeing to the United States should take notice — they will find no refuge here.”
ERO, which coordinates the removal of criminals and foreign fugitives ordered deported, has removed more than 1,789 foreign fugitives from the United States who were sought in their native countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape and murder.
