Man wanted on child sex offenses is first American on border’s Most Wanted list

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – An accused Texas sex offender has become the first U.S. citizen to make the list of the 10 most wanted fugitives on the Mexican border.

Alberto Mariscal, 49, has pending arrest warrants in Houston and Dallas for alleged sex crimes against children; authorities suspect he could be hiding in West Texas, New Mexico, or across the border in Chihuahua, Mexico. He was featured last February in the El Paso Police Department’s Crime Stoppers program as well.

Mariscal is number 10 on the list of the 2024 Se Busca Información (Information Wanted) campaign. It’s a binational law enforcement initiative to locate and arrest criminals who use their language skills, cultural ties or knowledge of the region to operate on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The suspects are wanted for murder, drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, sex crimes and torture, among others.

Se Busca Información consists of posters with 10 photographs, a telephone tip line and social media app so citizens in Texas or Mexico can anonymously report the whereabouts of the fugitives. The posters appear at ports of entry; the photos also are featured in billboards.

The U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso receives the information even if the call comes from Mexico.

“These dangerous individuals are wanted by both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement,” Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Pete Flores said on Thursday. “There is no single agency that can succeed in this mission alone. Se Busca campaign brings government agencies on both sides of the border that have agreed to cooperate and share information to help apprehend these criminals.”

Flores was among several dignitaries kicking off the latest iteration of a binational program to nab criminals who think they are safe because they are on the other side of the border wall. It is one of several initiatives by CBP and other federal agencies to combat transnational criminal organizations. Other programs include Plaza Spike and Operation Apollo .

This is the fourth time in five years the campaign to nab the border’s most wanted criminals is launched in El Paso. Thirteen of 40 featured individuals have been captured during that time and prosecuted in Mexico, said U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Chief Agent Scott Good.

“Being constant, day in and day out, in disrupting the activities of criminals is the only way to obtain results. Many of those who were (in the posters) last year are now behind bars,” Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui said at Thursday’s launch of the 2024 effort at El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas port of entry.

Emeterio Sifuentes Ortega, aka “El Oso” (The Bear) tops the list of the 10 most wanted fugitives on the border. He’s sought on kidnapping and weapons charges. Miguel Gomez Lazarin, aka “El Cirujano” (The Surgeon) remains at large on homicide and aggravated kidnapping charges despite being featured on the list for three straight years.

Armando Maldonado Lozoya is a new entry. The man nicknamed “El Senor de los Cuernos” (The Lord of the Horns) is wanted for homicide. A cuerno or horn, is a colloquial reference to the AK-47 rifle and its iconic banana clip.

Federal sources on Thursday told Border Report most of the fugitives on the list are linked to either La Linea or La Empresa transnational criminal organizations operating in Juarez, Mexico.

La Linea is the remnants of the old Juarez cartel of the 2000s. It now is associated with the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to Lantia Consultores research cited by the Baker Institute for Public Policy last October.

Court documents have linked La Empresa to at least two migrant stash houses in New Mexico. Federal sources and a community organization that works with asylum-seekers say La Empresa has staked out control of migrant smuggling in the Juarez-New Mexico corridor.

Chief Good of the Border Patrol urges the public on both sides of the Rio Grande to not be afraid to provide information on the activities or whereabouts of the suspects. Getting them off the streets makes El Paso, Juarez and other communities in the region safer, he said.

“Given the recent influx of illicit activity along the El Paso-Juarez corridor is more important than ever to collaborate on both sides of the border,” Good said. “Our focus continues to be to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations that endanger citizens on both sides of the border. It is critical that we engage with the community on both sides of the border to increase public awareness. Without community engagement, our efforts would not be nearly a successful.”

The telephone tip line for Se Busca Informacion is 915-314-8194.

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