A man who was jailed in Dublin in 2006 and has made a living stealing from wealthy hotel guests around the world has been arrested in the US state of Vermont near the border with Canada.
Federal authorities say Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt was arrested on September 21st at a service station near the border in Derby Line.
They say that he told a US Border Patrol agent his car broke down in Quebec and that he unknowingly walked across the border into Vermont.
Guzman-Betancourt, then known under the name of Gonzalo Zapater Vives, was arrested in Britain after a series of hotel burglaries there in 1998 but skipped bail and repeatedly gave authorities the slip in the years that followed.
His criminal career was cut short in London when an off-duty police officer recognized him at a supermarket in the city's wealthy Mayfair neighborhood in December 2004. He was arrested and then sentenced the following year for burglaries at the Dorchester Hotel and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
At his trial, prosecutors described how Guzman-Betancourt wandered into high-class London establishments, impersonating wealthy guests and pretending to have lost his keys or forgotten his security code. Obliging staff systematically helped the sharply dressed charmer into strangers' safes, and he made off with cash and jewelry, prosecutors said.
The man who arrested him, Detective Sgt Andy Swindells of Scotland Yard's burglary squad, described him at the time as "a highly accomplished liar."
Scotland Yard said yesterday that Guzman-Betancourt's sentence was 3 1/2 years' imprisonment - but that he ended up spending only two months behind bars. Sent to a low-security prison off the coast of southeast England, Guzman-Betancourt absconded on June 6th, 2005 - reportedly by persuading his jailers to let him out of prison for a dental appointment.
Police launched a major operation in an effort to recapture him, but Guzman-Betancourt - whom British media compared to Raffles, E.W. Hornung's fictional "gentleman thief" - was back on the run.
He was jailed for two years in Ireland in 2006 for a burglary at Dublin's Merrion Hotel and using a stolen credit card to buy luxury items at city centre jewellers.
He had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in March to entering a suite in the Merrion Hotel and stealing a ruby ring, a passport, a wallet containing credit cards, $3,500 (€2,655) in cash and €250 in cash on June 16th, 2005. He also pleaded guilty to using a stolen credit card to buy a Rolex watch, a gold chain and a wedding ring.
His extradition to France was ordered in December 2006. His whereabouts since then have been unknown.
He has also been wanted in Canada, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and Venezuela, according to a 2005 Associated Press report. In the US, he has been convicted of larceny in Virginia and New York and of fraudulent use of credit cards in Florida.