Chile Forum

Mark Phillips, Smuggler Fugitive Arrested After 31 Years...

"...the lead deputy marshal told him, "The judge wants to see you, Mark."
"The judge wants to see me from 30 years ago?" Phillips replied..."

Authorities investigating Phillips' disappearance received leads indicating he had fled the country, the Marshals said. In 1993, police gathered intelligence that Phillips had fled to Santiago, Chile, and assumed a new identity. He married a local woman using the name Marcus Steffan and created a commercial fishing company with her called "Fishing Research Inc." The company paid him $125,000 annually, authorities said. By the time U.S. Marshals received documentation of his new identity, however, Phillips had already left Chile.

Eight years later, the Marshals received information that Phillips was traveling between Chile and Germany,... a passport had been issued for a Marcus Steffan in 1991 and renewed in 1999.

...He had traveled to Chile in February 2001, authorities learned.

He is thought to have remained in Chile until 2010, when deputy marshals assigned to the cold case squad learned he had returned to the United States...