SAN DIEGO – A suspected gunman in what was described as “one of the most heinous mass killings in recent times” was arrested Thursday in Los Angeles and turned over to Mexican authorities Friday night at the U.S.-Mexican border in San Ysidro under “extraordinary” security, authorities said Sunday.

Jesus Ruben Moncada, 33, a Mexican national, is wanted in a 1998 drug-related massacre near Ensenada in which 19 men, women and children were taken from their homes and shot to death execution-style.

Authorities believe Moncada was a high-ranking member of the Arellano Felix drug cartel and that the killings were part of a drug turf war.

He was arrested Thursday night on immigration violations at his home in east Los Angeles by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service, according to a statement from ICE. He was taking out the trash at the time and did not resist arrest.

Moncada agreed to return voluntarily to Mexico, apparently not knowing immigration officials knew he was a suspect in the 1998 slayings.

“I think when we approached him, he had no idea we knew who he was and that he was a wanted man in Mexico,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Sunday by telephone.

Moncada was in U.S. custody for 24 hours, and was apparently surprised by the large security force awaiting his arrival in Tijuana. The area had been cleared of taxis, vendors and bystanders, Kice said.

“Security at the border was extraordinary, involving several hundred military personnel,” Kice said.

After his arrest, Moncada told immigration officers that he had entered the United States via the San Ysidro Port of Entry in December 1998. The massacre occurred on Sept. 17, 1998.

Kice said ICE recently obtained a lead about Moncada's possible whereabouts. Working with the Marshals Service, “we set up surveillance and made the decision to move in on Thursday night,” she said.

While in U.S. custody, Moncada told authorities that he had not been working recently due to a back injury, Kice said.

Kice said she did not know who, if anyone, was in the Los Angeles house at the time of the arrest.

Moncada is wanted for first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted murder. At least five children were among the victims in the slayings at a cluster of small homes at a ranch in an Ensenada suburb.

Prosecutors says Moncada was among a group of armed men who raided the homes in search of a drug dealer.

“This man is suspected of being involved in one of the most heinous mass killings in recent times,” Brian M. DeMore, Los Angeles field office director for ICE detention and removal operations, said in ICE's statement.

In Mexico, Fernando Castillo, press secretary for the Mexican Attorney General's Office, called the arrest “a major breakthrough for Mexican law enforcement.”

“We have been actively seeking this fugitive since the brutal slayings 10 years ago,” Castillo said.

Moncada, at least the 11th suspect arrested in connection with the slayings, was being held in Baja California's El Hongo penitentiary, about 60 miles east of Tijuana.

Thomas Hession, chief inspector of the U.S. Marshals Service Regional Fugitive Task Force based in Los Angeles, said in a statement that Moncada's arrest “will provide some relief to the families of his victims.”

Kice said such criminals “wrongly feel that they can come here (to the U.S.) and sort of disappear into the fabric of our society.”

“These criminals don't understand that there is an unprecedented degree of coordination and cooperation between international law enforcement agencies,” she said.

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