ICE deports Mexican national wanted for murder

PHOENIX - A Mexican national, who is wanted in his native country for murder, was handed over to Mexican law enforcement officials July 15 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), less than two weeks after his capture in Phoenix.

Lucio Quiroz-Beltran, 41, was transferred by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers to the custody of representatives from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office at the Nogales-Grand Avenue port of entry. Quiroz is charged in an arrest warrant issued in November 2014 with a homicide committed in Sinaloa, Mexico, in April 2014. According to the Mexican arrest warrant, Quiroz fatally shot a man in the head at a local ranch in Tempuche, Sinaloa. The victim’s body was found in the trunk of a vehicle near a market in Culiacan.

ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents, aided by officers from the Phoenix Police Department, arrested Quiroz July 1 at a home in Phoenix’s Maryvale neighborhood. He was taken into custody without incident after investigators developed information linking the murder suspect to the residence on the city’s west side.  

Quiroz’s capture is a direct result of the ongoing collaborative efforts between HSI’s attaché office in Hermosillo and the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office to locate and arrest suspects wanted for violent crimes in Mexico who are believed to have fled to the United States. 
 
Department of Homeland Security databases indicate Quiroz has been repatriated to Mexico eight times since 2003, most recently in June 2014. ICE reinstated Quiroz’s removal order, paving the way for his repatriation Wednesday. The suspect has no criminal convictions in the U.S.