Plenty of fugitives have fled to Mexico from the United States. Their aim is to evade the law, but one accused murderer who escaped south of the border decided to enforce it as well.
That man is Antonio “El Diablo” Riaño, a fugitive who authorities extradited to the United States earlier this month after they found him working as a police officer in Oaxaca.
He had avoided capture for almost 20 years after allegedly killing a man in Ohio.
In a statement released on Aug. 1, the United States Marshal’s Service (USMS) announced that Riaño, 72, was in U.S. custody.
“The U.S. Marshals Service and Butler County Prosecutor’s Office are pleased to announce the arrest of Antonio Riaño in his hometown of Zapotitlán Palmas, State of Oaxaca, Mexico,” USMS said.
“Antonio Riaño was wanted by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office for Homicide,” USMS said, noting that he was charged for the shooting death of 25-year-old man Benjamin Becerra in December 2004.
“After the shooting, Riaño allegedly fled the United States to avoid prosecution,” the statement said.
USMS said that “when Riaño was arrested in Mexico he was found to be working as a local police officer.”
It said that Deputy U.S. Marshals took custody of the suspect from Mexican authorities in Mexico City on Aug. 1.
“He was flown to Cincinnati and then transported to the Butler County Jail where he remains pending court proceedings,” USMS said.
An argument — and a murder — in Hamilton, Ohio
According to Cincinnati’s Fox 19 Now, police in Hamilton determined that Riaño shot Becerra in the face after a brief argument inside and then outside a bar in the city.
Paul Newton, the prosecutor’s chief investigator, said that Becerra was involved in a brawl at the same bar a few weeks before he was murdered. Consequently, when he showed up at the bar on Dec. 19, the bartender asked him to leave, Newton said.
He said that Riaño stepped in to help the bartender and subsequently became involved in an argument with Becerra. The bartender told the two men to take their argument outside and “minutes later gunshots rang out,” Fox 19 reported.
“The victim was found lying face down on the sidewalk. Riaño got into his van and took off, according to surveillance camera footage. … Local authorities used the surveillance video to identify Riaño as their suspect,” the news outlet said.
Investigators later found the alleged murder weapon hidden beneath the kitchen floor in Riaño’s apartment in Hamilton, but they were unable to locate the alleged murderer.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that when police searched his home, “they learned he used several fake names and had papers to create false documentation to obtain different identifications.”
“Prosecutors said Riaño was in the country unlawfully at the time of the shooting,” the newspaper added.
SDP Noticias reported that Riaño emigrated to the United States during adolescence.
Witnesses to the alleged murder told investigators that he was known as “El Diablo,” or The Devil.
A new beginning in Mexico
Riaño reportedly first traveled to New Jersey from Ohio before leaving the United States for his native Mexico.
The suspect’s wife told police that a friend drove him to Mexico.
According to the mayor of Zapotitlán Palmas, it wasn’t until 2020 that the wanted fugitive joined the police force of the town, found in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca.
U.S. authorities say they don’t know what Riaño was doing in Mexico before he became a cop.
Mayor Inés Martínez Reyes said that there hadn’t been any complaints about Riaño, and she even described him as “an irreproachable person.”
She said that none of the 10 police officers in Zapotitlán Palmas is certified, and explained that the municipality doesn’t have “sufficient filters” to determine whether applicants to police positions are suitable or not.
A reporter for Local 12, a television station in Cincinnati, asked Riaño earlier this month whether he killed Becerra and why he decided to become a police officer.
According to the reporter, his response to the first question was “no, I did not” and his answer to the second one was “because I wanted to help the people of Mexico.”
A fugitive on the lam — and on Facebook
Newton, the chief investigator in the Becerra murder case, recently began a new job at the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office and recommenced the search for Riaño.
“In January of this year, we started actively looking for Mr. Riaño again,” he told Local 12.
Newton soon found him online, not lurking somewhere on the deep web, but on the popular social media site Facebook — which eventually led him to the fugitive cop’s hometown in Oaxaca.
“I’m like, ‘My God, there he is!'” said Newton. “A little bit grayer, a little bit older, but it was him,” he said.
“… At first, I was speechless. Then, I think the second thing that came to mind was, ‘I got you!'”
The suspect’s Facebook page remains active. One reel posted last November shows him dressed in his municipal police uniform. A song called “Ese loco soy yo” (I’m that crazy guy) accompanies the video.
Crazy to open a Facebook page while trying to evade the law? The answer would appear to be yes.
Riaño’s previous appearances in legacy media failed to lead to his arrest.
USMS noted that Riaño appeared on the America’s Most Wanted television series in 2005. How many people watched that program in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca is unclear.
USMS also said that Riaño was listed as one of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office “Most Wanted.”
Riaño’s past catches up with him
USMS said that the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office teamed up with the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, which worked with law enforcement partners in Mexico to secure the arrest and extradition of Riaño.
Local 12 reported that authorities in the United States and Mexico collaborated for three months before police found and arrested the fugitive in Oaxaca in April. Riaño was detained outside the police station in Zapotitlán Palmas wearing his police uniform.
Newton asserted that anyone can be located “if you dig hard enough.”
“They found Bin Laden. So, if they can find Bin Laden, I can find Antonio Riaño,” he said.
Michael Black, U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio, said that law enforcement authorities wanted to “bring closure to this case and give that family some peace.”
A family reunion?
Local 12 reported that Riaño has a wife and three children in the Hamilton area. The news outlet didn’t say whether he had had any contact with him over the past 20 years.
For the time being at least, any family reunion will occur while Riaño remains in custody.
His lawyer, Kara Blackney, filed a motion asking the court to allow her client to bond out of jail because he had no criminal history, according to The Washington Post.
But Butler County Common Pleas Judge Michael A. Oster Jr. denied bond for Riaño on Monday, according to court filings posted online.
Riaño is set to return to court on Sept. 16 for a plea or trial setting, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. El policía prófugo, or fugitive cop, faces a charge of first-degree murder.
With reports from Fox 19, Local 12, NVI Noticias, SDP Noticias, The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Washington Post
