MEXICO CITY, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Criminal investigation agents have arrested the suspected rapist of a 13-year-old girl in a village in central Mexico, Mexico's prosecutor-general (PGR) said Tuesday.

Mexican citizen Juan Paulino Cantero, who was on the FBI's Most Wanted List, was being sought by the FBI for the suspected sexual abuse and rape of a 13-year-old girl in 2015 in Pinellas, the U.S. state of Florida, the PGR said in a statement.

PGR agents arrested the suspect in Ixmiquilpan, in the state of Hidalgo, and have placed him in provisional detention with the aim of extraditing him to the United States, the statement said.

Cantero has been sought by the FBI since April 2016, when he was charged at a federal court in Florida after fleeing the country to avoid a court date related to the rape charges in 2015.

The PGR said its agents, backed by Interpol Mexico, tracked the 35-year-old man after a field investigation and sharing information with the FBI.

Cantero had been using a false identity to escape, but the PGR's forensic researchers found that his face matched that of the FBI fugitive.

He has been jailed in Mexico City while the judge who ordered his capture initiated his extradition proceedings.