AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) today announced that a Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitive and a Texas 10 Most Wanted Sex Offender were recently captured. Andrew Jerome Belmontes, 26, (pictured left) was arrested Monday in Starr County; and Shawn Monroe Cowan, 43, (pictured right) was arrested last week in Oregon. (The arrests were not the result of a tip, and no reward will be paid.)
Belmontes, affiliated with the Texas Chicano Brotherhood gang, is now in custody after turning himself in at the Starr County Sheriff’s Office in Rio Grande City. He had been wanted since September 2017 for parole violation. In 2014, Belmontes was convicted in Starr County on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was released on parole from state prison in June 2017. For more information, see his captured bulletin.
Working off investigative information, the Oregon State Police apprehended Cowan near Bonanza, Oregon. The Klamath County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Service – District of Oregon also provided assistance in the capture. (A female sex offender fugitive from Texas was taken into custody at the same time.) Cowan had been wanted since June 2017 after absconding from his last known address in Beaumont. For more information, see his captured bulletin.
So far in 2018, DPS and other agencies have arrested 12 Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives and Sex Offenders, including six gang members and six sex offenders.
Texas Crime Stoppers, which is funded by the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division, offers cash rewards to any person who provides information that leads to the arrest of one of the Texas 10 Most Wanted fugitives or sex offenders.
To be eligible for the cash rewards, tipsters MUST provide information to authorities using one of the three following methods:
- Call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477).
- Submit a web tip through the DPS website by selecting the fugitive you have information about, and then clicking on the link under their picture.
- Submit a Facebook tip by clicking the "SUBMIT A TIP" link (under the "About" section).
All tips are anonymous – regardless of how they are submitted – and tipsters will be provided a tip number instead of using a name.
DPS investigators work with local law enforcement agencies to select fugitives for the Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitive and Sex Offender lists. You can find the current lists – with photos – on the DPS website.
Do not attempt to apprehend these fugitives; they are considered armed and dangerous.
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