Gang member linked to 2015 Fort Worth robbery and killing captured at Texas border
A Fort Worth gang member accused of being involved in a robbery and murder in 2015 was in custody Wednesday after he was taken into custody in Laredo over the weekend.
Diego Pena-Arias, 22, was arrested Sunday by agents with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge, according to KGNS-TV.
He was taken into custody after agents conducted an inspection on a U.S. citizen who was traveling in a privately owned vehicle.
The Fort Worth man remained in the Webb County Jail in Laredo on Wednesday awaiting extradition. He was being held on a murder charge and probation violation.
Pena-Arias and two other men were accused in a June 2015 store robbery in north Fort Worth in which another suspect was fatally shot by a clerk. The three also were accused of being involved in their accomplice’s death.
Pena-Arias, Mauro Villarreal Jr., 24, and Gonzalo Arias-Jimenez, 25, did not fire the shot that killed Christian Carvajal, 18, but they were accused of intentionally or knowingly engaging in a felony — aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon — that caused Carvajal’s death.
Pena-Arias has been on the run since the robbery.
Villarreal and Arias-Jimenez, both of Fort Worth, were arrested in August 2015 and initially charged with engaging in organized criminal activity/murder.
But both were sentenced to 10 years’ probation with deferred adjudication in 2016 on charges of aggravated robbery, according to Tarrant County criminal court records.
The store robbery
On the afternoon of June 17, 2015, police allege, Carvajal was brandishing a 12-gauge shotgun as he and another accomplice walked into the Lincoln Grocery at 1701 Lincoln Ave. and demanded money from the clerk.
According to arrest warrant affidavits, Carvajal and Villarreal had been discussing their plan to rob the store in messages exchanged on Facebook.
Villarreal “encourages the robbery and states he needs to buy another ride,” homicide Detective Jerry Cedillo wrote in an affidavit.
Carvajal mentioned in the conversation that he would get “Crazy” to help — the nickname for Pena-Arias. Carvajal and Pena-Arias are documented gang members, the affidavit says.
Villarreal served as a lookout, entering and scouting out the store minutes before the robbery, the affidavit says.
Investigators believe that Pena-Arias and Carvajal, concealing their faces with rags, then entered the store. Surveillance cameras captured one of the robbers grabbing the clerk’s wallet while the other went behind the counter looking for cash.
Clerk fires at robbers
The clerk grabbed his .38-caliber revolver and shot Pena-Arias in the left arm and Carvajal in the chest, the affidavit says.
Pena-Arias ran from the store and into an alley, where Arias-Jimenez, his cousin, was waiting in a black Chevrolet Avalanche, investigators say.
Arias-Jimenez admitted to investigators that he drove the getaway vehicle and provided the shotgun. He told detectives that the plan was for the men to split the proceeds four ways, the affidavit says.
About two years before he was killed, Carvajal was among victims of a robbery at a south Fort Worth McDonald’s that garnered national attention.
Carvajal, then two days shy of turning 17, was inside the McDonald’s at 4800 South Freeway on Sept. 24, 2013, when a man walked in, pointed a gun at customers and demanded their possessions.
The robber repeatedly pulled the trigger while aiming at victims, but the gun malfunctioned and would not fire. Twice, however, he was able to fire the weapon outside.
He was soon arrested by responding officers and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for aggravated robbery.
This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 8:56 AM.
