Marshals Catch Top Fugitive on Wanted List

ATLANTA —  An alleged cocaine kingpin and the No. 1 fugitive on the Marshals Service’s “15 most wanted” list was arrested Thursday at an Atlanta airport.

Peter Paul Zink, charged with running a cocaine ring in Wisconsin, had been a fugitive since 1988.

Zink, a 43-year-old California native, was arrested in Guatemala in February, but officials there refused to extradite him to the United States to face the drug charges. They did, however, kick Zink out of the country as an “undesirable person.”

Guatemalan officials, working with representatives from the U.S. State Department, put Zink on a flight Thursday morning. State Department officials guarded Zink on the way to Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport.

He is to be taken to Wisconsin to stand trial.

Zink was No. 1 on the U.S. Marshals’ list because he was a fugitive for so long and because he is considered dangerous, said Robert H. McMichael, marshal for the Northern District of Georgia.

Zink has been arrested before on charges of homicide, attempted murder and weapon and drug possession, but the Marshals Service could not say if he had been convicted or served time in prison.

In addition to federal charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, Zink was wanted on murder-solicitation charges for allegedly hiring a gunman to kill a police informant in 1987.