Mexican murder suspect arrested in U.S.

A Mexican fugitive who fled to the United States to avoid arrest for a 2010 murder was found in Orange County this week and handed over to Mexican authorities at the San Ysidro border crossing, authorities said Tuesday.

Mexican law officials had issued an arrest warrant for Mateo Perez Hernandez, 28, suspected of bludgeoning another man to death with a baseball bat during a party in Mexicali in September, 2010, said Immigration and Customers Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

Kice said the FBI notified immigrations officers in San Diego about the Perez warrant on Aug. 8. Officers traced Perez to La Habra, then worked with police there to get him into custody.

La Habra police detained Perez on a drug charge on Sunday, then handed him over to a federal fugitive operations team.

Perez, who had been deported from the United States once before in February, 2010, was taken to the San Ysidro border crossing on Monday and turned over to Mexican authorities, Kice said.

The ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations unit has sent more than 640 foreign fugitives back to their home countries since 2009, Kice said.