LOS ANGELES -- The brother-in-law of former Mexican President Alfredo Luis Echeverria has been arrested in Texas and is to be brought to California for questioning in connection with the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, federal authorities said Friday. Ruben Zuno-Arce, 59, was arrested Wednesday night in San Antonio by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents, according to Gary Renick, deputy INS chief there. Sources said Zuno-Arce is to be questioned this week before a federal grand jury about the Camarena murder. Renick said Zuno-Arce, who is on a special list of suspected drug dealers, was spotted as he passed through Customs in San Antonio Wednesday afternoon after arriving on a commercial flight from Mexico. Federal Magistrate Robert O'Connor in San Antonio ordered Zuno-Arce held without bail as "a material witness" in the Camarena case and directed that he be transferred immediately to Los Angeles. O'Connor acted in response to an arrest warrant signed by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, who presided over a trial in Los Angeles last year that convicted three men in the February 1985 murder of Camarena. Seven other men have been charged with murder and conspiracy in the case, including Mexican drug kingpins Rafael Caro-Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca-Carrillo. Both are in a Mexico City jail awaiting charges in Camarena's murder. Zuno-Arce has been identified by several informers and in Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigative reports as a major narcotics trafficker in the Guadalajara area, according to court documents filed by DEA Special Agent Abel Reynoso. "According to the informants," Reynoso wrote, "Ruben Zuno-Arce has made statements that he has knowledge about the kidnapping and murder of a DEA agent." Additionally, Reynoso said it is believed that Zuno-Arce has "valuable information" regarding the sale to Caro-Quintero of his former Guadalajara home, where Camarena was tortured and slain. Zuno-Arce sold the home to a Mexican physician on Jan. 11, 1985, according to Mexican land records cited in Reynoso's declaration. The doctor was a partner in a Guadalajara real estate firm that sold the house to Caro-Quintero the same day. Less than a month later, on Feb. 7, 1985, Camarena was kidnapped, tortured and killed. His body was found about four weeks later in a rural area in the Mexican state of Michoacan.
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