Border Patrol manhunt in the Keys linked to probe of undocumented Guatemalan man: report
A multi-agency search for two Guatemalan men who fled Border Patrol agents during a Florida Keys traffic stop Wednesday was linked to an ongoing investigation, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court Thursday.
Two men were apprehended by the end of the day, but Monroe County sheriff’s deputies, Florida Highway Patrol troopers and Florida fish and wildlife police flooded the Lower Keys Wednesday morning aiding Border Patrol agents in their search.
Border Patrol agents were surveilling a house on Avenue A in Big Pine Key “pursuant to a separate investigation related to a male target associated with the residence,” agents said in the complaint.
Agents watched a blue Ford F150 pull into the driveway that is registered to the son of the man under investigation, the complaint states.
When the truck left, agents followed it and noticed three men were inside, none of whom were the target of their investigation, according to the report. When they pulled it over, the agents determined all were Guatemalans not legally permitted in the U.S., the complaint states.
Agents repeatedly demanded the driver, identified in the report as Darwin Joel Perez-Tecu, get out of the truck. He refused, and they pulled him out and cuffed him, according to the complaint.
As they were cuffing him, however, the man sitting in the passenger seat ran away, the report states.
Then, a cuffed Perez-Tecu ran away and jumped into a gray Toyota, agents said.
The report states that “minutes later,” Agents stopped the Toyota and Perez-Tecu, still handcuffed, was in the front passenger seat.
The Border Patrol did not immediately respond when asked by the Herald if the other man who ran away has been caught.
Adam Hoffner, assistant chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Miami sector, said Wednesday that both Perez-Tecu and the man who was in the back seat of the pickup, were handed over to Customs and Immigration Enforcement to be processed for removal from the country.
According to the complaint, Perez-Tecu now faces a criminal charge of escaping federal law enforcement, which is punishable by up to a year in prison.
