Man who fled after Brockton killings arrested in Ecuador

Luis A. Guaman Cela, 40, was arrested in Cuenca, Ecuador, and charged with possessing and using a fake Ecuadoran passport, apparently the same document he used to leave the United States less than three hours after the bodies of his housemate Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela and her son, Brian, were found Sunday in a trash bin behind their house.

Guaman’s arrest in the bustling city of more than 400,000 people in southern Ecuador renewed hope for a possible break in the case.

Yesterday, a judicial police officer in Cuenca said Guaman is being held without bail pending a hearing before a judge in Ecuador today. He said authorities will seek to keep him in jail.

It was unclear last night whether US authorities would have opportunities to question Guaman or bring him back to the United States. He faces multiple arrest warrants in the United States on various charges. Ecuador’s constitution prohibits the extradition of its citizens to other countries.

“The judicial police of Cuenca did our job,’’ he said. “It’s up to the judicial system now.’’

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an authorized police spokesman. Ecuador’s consul in Boston, Beatriz Almeida de Stein, confirmed that Guaman was arrested in Ecuador and that his estranged wife in the United States helped locate him.

The officer said Guaman called his estranged wife in the United States shortly after he arrived in Ecuador and allegedly threatened to harm her parents, who live in Canar Province, unless she sent him money.

“He was blackmailing her,’’ the police official said. “He said the same thing would happen to her parents as happened to the people up there.’’

Working with police, she agreed to send Guaman money, which police said he demanded she send to an alias. Police arrested him around 11:30 a.m. yesterday in front of a money transfer agency in downtown Cuenca when he went to pick it up.

Police said the passport Guaman had was under the name Segundo Antonio Castro.

Guaman could face additional charges in another jurisdiction in Ecuador on the accusation of threatening his in-laws, the official said.

The official said he was surprised that Guaman was allowed to leave the United States using a fake passport.

“We are happy to have helped,’’ he said.

Earlier yesterday, Almeida de Stein, the consul, said relatives of the victims had captured Guaman and turned him over to police. But police said that was inaccurate and that they had made the arrest, with help from Guaman’s estranged wife and her relatives.

Plymouth County officials, who did not return telephone calls yesterday, issued a statement saying they declined to comment. District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz had expressed frustration that Guaman had been allowed to leave the country so quickly.

Guaman has not been charged in the killings. He shared an apartment on Warren Avenue in Brockton with the woman, her husband and son, and another man, and is believed to be the last person to see the victims alive. The woman’s husband, Manuel Jesus Caguana, was in Virginia on a two-week construction job when she disappeared.

Another housemate, Aparicio Valencia de la Cruz, told authorities he overheard Guaman arguing with Palaguachi-Cela before she and her son disappeared.

De la Cruz has been charged with misleading police in the case for failing to disclose that Guaman had an airline ticket to Ecuador. De la Cruz has pleaded not guilty.

Less than three hours after the bludgeoned bodies of Palaguachi-Cela and her son were found, Guaman apparently used a fake passport to board a flight at John F. Kennedy airport in New York, bound eventually for Ecuador.

He is wanted on multiple warrants in New York and Massachusetts, including more than one accusing him of assaulting his estranged wife. It was unclear why he was not arrested despite the pending warrants.

Maria Sacchetti can be reached at MSacchetti@globe.com.