Mexico Takes Steps to Extradite Suspect in Baja Mass Murder

Mexican authorities have filed a petition for the extradition of a suspected triggerman in the killing of 19 people in Ensenada last year.

Manuel Escalante, 24, is wanted in Mexico for first-degree murder, an official of Mexico’s attorney general’s office in Los Angeles said Wednesday.

Mexico has 60 days to submit a formal request for extradition that would include evidence of Escalante’s role in the Baja California killings, Immigration and Naturalization officials said.

Ten others are in custody in Mexico on suspicion of taking part in the slayings and two suspects remain at large, Mexican authorities said.

Ensenada resident Escalante is a Spanish national who lived in Mexico and entered the United States through San Ysidro in May on a visa.

Acting on information provided by Mexican authorities, about 25 undercover officers followed Escalante’s mother and sister Saturday as they took a bus from Ensenada, said Aaron Wilson of the INS.

Escalante’s relatives arrived at a Walnut Park bus station, where they were picked up by Escalante in a white car, Wilson said. Escalante was followed and stopped without incident by undercover agents just a block from his home in the 100 block of 28th Street.

Escalante was arrested for being a “non-immigrant not in possession of a valid passport or visa,” Wilson said. He is in the custody of U.S. marshals at the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center.

After the arrest, investigators discovered that Escalante and his wife had lived since May in a studio apartment with no telephone, Wilson said. He worked as a part-time carpenter and kept a low profile in the mostly working-class Latino neighborhood.

Dressed in shorts, sandals and a baseball cap, Escalante “just looked like your everyday type of guy,” Wilson said. “He didn’t look like an assassin.”

But U.S. and Mexican authorities believe that Escalante belonged to a criminal group headed by Arturo Martinez Gonzalez, also known as “Lino Quintana,” who allegedly is a well-known Baja California hired gun who works for the Arellano Felix drug cartel and is still at large.

In addition to being wanted for murder, Escalante is wanted for kidnapping in a related case, said Jorge Ricardo Garcia-Villalobos Haddad, head of Mexico’s attorney general’s office in Los Angeles.

On Sept. 17 of last year, Gonzalez allegedly assembled 13 gunmen after drinking alcohol and sniffing cocaine, Wilson said. They went to Ensenada’s Rancho El Rodeo, where they confronted Fermin Castro, who authorities said was a small-time drug trafficker who owed money to Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, Escalante and the rest of the gunmen wanted to steal 800 pounds of marijuana from Castro, in exchange for the money he owed Gonzalez, Villalobos Haddad said. Armed with assault rifles, the gunmen shot 21 people at the ranch, including a woman and children.