On this date, July 9, in 2000, FBI most wanted fugitive Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza was arrested for the murder of an undercover federal agent in Arizona that led to one of the most intense manhunts in recent U.S. and Mexican law enforcement history.

Vasquez-Mendoza headed a Mexican gang that made and smuggled methamphetamine into the United States. In 1994, he hatched a plan to kill undercover Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Richard E. Fass and rob him of $160,000.

The FBI placed Vasquez-Mendoza on its Ten Most Wanted list and offered a $2.2 million reward. He was captured in Mexico City, but Mexico resisted his extradition for five years, until the United States agreed to take the death penalty off the table. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

-- Scott McCabe