Accused Killer of U.S. Drug Agent Extradited

WASHINGTON —  A man suspected of killing a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operative a decade ago was extradited from Mexico after a long legal battle, U.S. officials said Saturday.

Richard Fass was shot in 1994 while working undercover in Arizona. The DEA said Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza and others killed Fass to rob him of $160,000 that they believed was for the purchase of methamphetamine.

“I would like to thank the government of Mexico, in particular Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha, for monitoring the progress of this investigation and moving forward with the extradition,” DEA head Karen P. Tandy said.

Mexican police arrested Vasquez-Mendoza, but there was a legal battle over his extradition because of a Mexican Supreme Court ruling against extraditing suspects who face tough sentences in other countries.

In 2002, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the nation’s constitution forbade the extradition of people who faced longer sentences than they would receive under Mexican law. The DEA said Vasquez-Mendoza, if convicted, faced life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.

Vasquez-Mendoza was removed from Mexico City and taken to Phoenix, where he is to appear before a Maricopa County judge. He is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, armed robbery, attempted murder, attempted armed robbery, kidnapping and first-degree burglary, the agency said.

He had been on the FBI’s most-wanted list, and the DEA said it spent six years and more than $1 million trying to find him.