Antonio “El Diablo” Riano, a fugitive wanted by US authorities for almost two decades in connection to a fatal shooting in Cincinnati, was recently found working as a police officer in Mexico.
In December of 2004, four days before Christmas, Antonion Riano got into an argument with a 25-year-old man at a bar in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their bickering continued outside the watering hole where surveillance cameras caught Riano pulling out a gun and then shooting the other man in the face, killing him. The man nicknamed “El Diablo” (Spanish for ‘The Devil’) then went on the run and managed to escape authorities despite a nationwide manhunt. Riano went to visit his sister in New Jersey before disappearing again, this time for almost 20 years. He remained on the US’ most wanted criminals list, but investigators stopped actively looking for him after a few years, until recently when one detective found El Diablo through social media.
There was no Facebook when Antonio Riano committed murder nearly two decades ago, but when Paul Newton, a former deputy on the 2004 case who now works for the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, searched his name on the popular social network he was shocked to see the photo of the same man he had been dreaming of catching, only working as a police officer in the Mexcian state of Oaxaca.
“I’m like, ‘My God, there he is!'” Newton told WKRC. “A little bit grayer, a little bit older, but it was him.”
Man wanted for 2004 murder in Butler County found working as police officer in Mexico. We ask him, “Why did you become a policeman?” His answer below…
WATCH: https://t.co/bLTAL9yxJP@Local12 pic.twitter.com/fD5m5qRiJM— David Winter (@DavidWinterTV) August 2, 2024
US investigators contacted Mexican authorities and they confirmed that Riano was indeed working as a police officer with the Zapotitlan Palmas Police Department. Mexico agreed to turn Riano over to US marshals after arresting him, and he was then flown to Ohio to be booked with murder, a punishment that can carry a life sentence in the US state.
Despite the video evidence of him shooting Benjamin Beccera at the Roundhouse Bar in Hamilton, Ohio. two decades ago, Antonio Riano continued to deny his crime, but prosecutors claim that they don’t need his confession.
“We had all the evidence we needed gathered,” Mark Henson, a detective on the case in 2004, said. “We already had a direct indictment against him. It was just a matter of waiting to find him.”
Asked why he became a police officer in Mexico, the 72-year-old man said that he “wanted to help the people of Mexico”. Talk about hiding in plain sight, eh?
