LAREDO, Texas – As U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers begin a new fiscal year, they encountered a man wanted on a felony warrant for failure to appear on a sexual assault, strangulation and suffocation charge.

“Our frontline CBP officers continue to maintain strict vigilance and successfully apprehended a man wanted for an alleged violent sex crime,” said Port Director Albert Flores, Laredo Port of Entry. “Apprehensions like these underscore and illustrate the importance of CBP’s vital border security mission.”

On Monday, Oct. 2, CBP officers at Gateway to the Americas Bridge referred pedestrian Marco Antonio Lopez Casillas, 40, a Mexican citizen, for secondary inspection. During secondary examination, CBP officers utilizing biometric verification and federal law enforcement databases verified his identity and discovered that he was the subject of an outstanding felony arrest warrant for failure to appear on an original charge of sexual assault, strangulation and suffocation issued by Dunn County Sheriff’s Office, Menomonie, Wis. CBP officers transported Lopez Casillas to Webb County jail.

The National Crime Information Center is a centralized automated database designed to share information among law enforcement agencies including outstanding warrants for a wide range of offenses. Based on information from NCIC, CBP officers have made previous arrests of individuals wanted for homicide, escape, money laundering, robbery, narcotics distribution, sexual child abuse, fraud, larceny, and military desertion. Criminal charges are merely allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

Follow the Director of CBP’s Laredo Field Office on Twitter at @DFOLaredo and on Instagram at @dfolaredo and also U.S. Customs and Border Protection at @CBPSouthTexas for breaking news, current events, human interest stories and photos.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the comprehensive management, control, and protection of our nation’s borders, combining customs, immigration, border security, and agricultural protection at and between official ports of entry.