El Centro Sector arrest deported murderer and convicted sex offender

IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. (KYMA, KECY)-Border Patrol agents arrested a convicted murderer and a convicted sex offender last Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) says in the first incident agents surveillanced a local motel and encountered a man who was hiding four people in a room.

Agents questioned the man, a U.S. citizen, and determined the three men and one woman that were in the room were, in fact, undocumented immigrants.

Agents arrested the group and transported them to the El Centro station for further processing.

At the station, records check revealed that one of the men, identified as Marcos Flores-Diaz, 44, from El Salvador, was convicted of murder on May 30, 2000, in Santa Ana County.

Flores was sentenced to 20 years in prison and had been previously removed from the United States on September 4, 2019.    

Flores is being held in federal custody pending further criminal prosecution.

The man, the U.S. citizen was booked on charges of human smuggling.  The other individuals were sent back to Mexico under Title 42 authority.

The second incident occurred that same day when agents assigned to the Calexico Station observed a man illegally entering the United States approximately three miles east of the Calexico West Downtown Port of Entry. 

Agents in the field responded to the area and arrested the man. 

Records checks revealed that the man, identified as Andres Zavala-Lopez,45, from Mexico, had a felony conviction on May 15, 1995, for “Annoy or Molest Children” out of Vista.  The man was sentenced to 90 days of incarceration and three years probation for his conviction.

Zavala was sent back to Mexico.