FUGITIVE WANTED BY RIVERSIDE COUNTY AND THE FBI FOR MURDER, ESCAPE AND UNLAWFUL FLIGHT ARRESTED IN MEXICO

A fugitive wanted by local and federal authorities in Riverside County was apprehended in Mexico this morning and deported based on a successful investigation by the FBI’s Inland Regional Apprehension Team, announced Salvador Hernandez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles and Stanley Sniff, Sheriff of Riverside County, California. Robert Carlos Cruz, who was one of nine inmates to escape from the Riverside County Jail in Blythe, California, on June 15, 2006, had remained at large after the others were captured. At the time of the escape, Cruz was in custody awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge stemming from a June 19, 2005, shooting in Coachella, California. On June 16, 2006, a state arrest warrant was issued in Riverside County Superior Court after Cruz was charged with escape from a penal institution. A federal warrant charging Cruz with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution was issued on July 17, 2006, by the United States District Court in Los Angeles, Central District of California. Photographs of Cruz were publicized on the FBI’s website, and on the America’s Most Wanted website. The FBI poster profiling Cruz can be found at the following link: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/vc/additional/cruz.rc.htm The FBI received a tip earlier in March indicating that Cruz was located in Mexicali, Mexico, the location where officers and agents believed he may have been since his escape. The information was corroborated and the FBI’s Border Liaison Agent in San Diego was contacted. The FBI in San Diego and members of the IRAT worked with officers from the Policia Estatal Preventive (Baja California State Preventive Police), a specialized team in Baja, California, whose officers spotted Cruz last evening and arrested him without incident in Mexicali at approximately 9:00p.m. Cruz, a U.S. citizen who had been living in Mexico in violation of Mexican immigration laws, was deported to the U.S. An FBI agent and an officer with the Riverside Sheriff’s Department drove to Calexico last night and took custody of Cruz with the assistance of agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Cruz was processed in Riverside County Jail on three felony warrants issued in Riverside County, California; attempted murder, escape and a narcotics violation. It is anticipated that the federal government will dismiss the UFAP later today and that Cruz will be prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office in Riverside County, California. The arrest of Cruz is the result of a fugitive investigation conducted by the FBI’s Inland Regional Apprehension Team (IRAT), the Policia Estatal Preventive (Baja California State Preventive Police), the FBI’s Border Liaison Agent assigned to the FBI’s San Diego Division and agents with Customs and Border Protection. IRAT members include officers with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the Riverside Police Department and the San Bernardino Police Department.