San Diego

A reputed Detroit drug kingpin on a list of the nation’s 15 most-wanted fugitives has been captured after four years on the run, the U.S. marshal’s office said.

Gerald Lee Carroll, 46, a Cincinnati native, was arrested Saturday by officers who pulled over his car after following him from a La Mesa residence they had been watching, said Bill Dempsey, a spokesman for the U.S. marshal’s office in Arlington, Va.

Carroll surrendered peacefully and was jailed in San Diego pending court proceedings.

Authorities started looking for Carroll in January, 1986, after his indictment in Detroit on charges of possessing, distributing and conspiring to import marijuana.

He is accused of heading a smuggling ring that, since 1974, imported tons of marijuana into the United States from South America, said Dempsey.

Carroll, who has two previous narcotics convictions, also faces a 1988 federal indictment in Los Angeles on income tax violations, marshal’s officials said.

Authorities had been searching for Carroll throughout the United States, Central America and South America.