Florida Lawyer Caught After 26 Years on the Run

02/15/13

Disbarred Florida lawyer Manuel Lopez-Castro, who went on the run to avoid prison term for drug money laundering, was caught in Cancun, Mexico on Tuesday, and by Thursday, he was in custody of U.S. authorities in Miami. Manuel had been on the run for the last 26 years.

Senior Inspector Barry Golden of the U.S. Marshals Service said he had been hiding for years with his family in Mexico, and even on the day he was apprehended, Manuel, now 61, led the police through a long foot chase.

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The ex-Florida lawyer had duped the authorities when he secured a respite on a $250,000 bond, promising to appear to serve on a 27-year sentence for smuggling marijuana, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He is believed to have fled from one country to another leading the police on a futile international hunt. Countries where he had resided in between in hiding include Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina, Venezuela and Panama. After spending short whiles in each of the mentioned countries, he ultimately settled down in Cancun, Mexico, where he has been living for years.

He was traced to Cancun recently by U.S. Marshals and the Mexican National Police. On Tuesday, law enforcement authorities staged a traffic stop to get a closer look at the suspect and confirm his identity. However, the ex-lawyer left the car he was driving with family members and tried to flee.

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After being caught, Lopez-Castro still argued that he was a Mexican citizen, but it was revealed that he had obtained a fake Mexican birth certificate about ten years ago, and was in fact, the former Florida lawyer police were searching for.

Though after 26 years having passed, the case had gone cold, something made U.S. Marshals stationed in Mexico suspect that Lopez-Castro was in Mexico, in 2012.

Lopez-Castro was originally born in Cuba and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1977. While working for the Sunshine State Bank in Miami, he was convicted of helping a marijuana syndicate launder huge sums of money through Florida banks.

Besides the bail-bond money of $250,000, his Miami home was also seized by federal authorities in 1987, and in the same year, the Florida Supreme Court disbarred him. Now, along with his previous 27-year sentence, he also faces a bond-jumping charge.