The FBI and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police announced this week that Alejandro Rosales Castillo — a fugitive who had been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for years — was captured in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico on January 16, 2026. This arrest ends nearly a decade of failure by our system to keep dangerous criminals off the streets and brings a desperate family one step closer to justice.
Authorities say Castillo is accused of luring his former co-worker, 23-year-old Truc Quan “Sandy” Ly Le, under the pretense of repaying a $1,000 debt, forcing her to withdraw cash and then fatally shooting her in a wooded area outside Charlotte in 2016. The brutality of the alleged crime — a young woman betrayed by someone she trusted at work — demands that every American demand accountability from the criminal and immigration systems that let this drag on.
The case was complicated by a chilling surveillance clip that showed Castillo crossing from Nogales, Arizona into Mexico in August 2016, footage that haunted investigators for years and highlighted how easily suspects can flee our borders. That video was posted by federal officials and ought to serve as Exhibit A for anyone who doubts that porous border policies have real victims.
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement coordinated to bring Castillo into custody, and officials say extradition proceedings are expected to follow so he can face charges in North Carolina. While the capture deserves praise for tireless investigators, we should not let one arrest paper over the slow-motion disaster at our frontier that enabled this flight in the first place.
Let’s be blunt: hardworking Americans pay taxes for a justice system that must be able to stop killers from running cross-border for years. Politicians who defend lax border enforcement while applauding law enforcement captures are living in contradiction; defending the rule of law means shutting down the routes criminals use to vanish into Mexico, not just cheering when rare cooperation produces an arrest.
Sandy Le’s family deserves closure and the full weight of the law, and the American people deserve a border that keeps dangerous fugitives from disappearing. This arrest should be a wake-up call: support our men and women in law enforcement, demand secure borders, and insist prosecutors see this through to the toughest possible sentence.
