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TV Show Leads to Arrest of Murder Suspect

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A June 4 segment of a television show, “America’s Most Wanted,” is credited with leading to the arrest of a former professional boxer from Los Angeles on Thursday night.

Mauricio Aldana Acosta, 34, was arrested in Tijuana after a manhunt by law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border. Acosta is wanted in connection with the murder of Martin Arguello Trujillo in Los Angeles on Jan. 2.

The television show dramatized the story of Acosta, known to fight fans as “El Gato,” who was a light-middleweight contender in the early 1980s before he began using drugs and losing fights. Acosta and Trujillo had argued the night Trujillo was killed with three shots from a .38-caliber revolver.

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Thomas Hughes, special agent in charge of the San Diego FBI office, said a number of viewers called the FBI and San Diego Police Department with information about Acosta’s whereabouts after the show.

Mexican state judicial police arrested Acosta about 11 p.m. Thursday at an apartment in Tijuana. He will be held for trial in Mexico because he is a Mexican citizen.

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