The US Marshals Service has captured Vincent Legrend Walters, one of the law enforcement agency's 15 most wanted fugitives, in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

Walters, 45, wanted on kidnapping, murder and drug charges stemming from a 1988 San Diego case, was apprehended on Friday morning, then transported to Mexico City where he will await extradition to the United States, the service said late on Friday.

Walters had been working at the Cancun International Airport under the assumed name Oscar Rivera, according to a statement released by the agency.

An official at the airport who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Walters was not an airport employee but rather had worked for a resort selling time-share vacation packages by staffing an information booth at the terminal for about a decade. Outside staffers at such booths are usually not subject to the same security reviews as airport employees.

The hotel complex for which Walters worked is in Puerto Morelos, just south of Cancun, the airport official said.

While Walters was using an assumed name, the Marshals Service said he "had boasted to people that he was a fugitive from San Diego and wanted by the US Marshals Service".

Walters allegedly bought chemicals to make methamphetamines from undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents in 1988. An associate handed over the finished meth to a local dealer to hold. The dealer passed them on to yet another man.

When Walters wanted the drugs back, he kidnapped the dealer who had been holding the meth, his friend and the friend's girlfriend, offering the hostages in exchange for the return of the drugs. Two of the hostages were released.

However, the third kidnap victim, the girlfriend, died because she had been gagged with a chemical-soaked rag. Walter's brother Martin was convicted in the kidnapping and murder and is serving 25 years to life in prison.

Reuters-AP