Fugitive caught: Julio Anaya, 47, is being held on 15 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child and an additional count of failure to appear while on bail after spending 18 years on the run

A fugitive charged with molesting five girls in California, some as young as six years old, has been captured in Maryland after 19 years on the lam.

Julio Alberto Anaya, 47, was located in Maryland earlier this month and arrested by the Anna Arundel County Police on a warrant from Ventura County, California.

On Monday, Anaya was extradited back to California and booked into the county jail on 15 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child and an additional count of failure to appear while on bail.

In December 1999, Anaya, then aged 29, was arrested for allegedly molesting five girls ranging in age from six to 11 years old following a five-month investigation conducted by detectives with the Thousand Oaks Investigations Bureau Major Crimes.

In April 2000, Anaya was released from jail after posting $250,000 bail. He was due back in Ventura Superior Court a month later, but failed to appear, prompting a judge to issue an arrest warrant for him in the amount of $500,000.

The trail for Anaya had gone cold until last month, when police in Thousand Oaks learned that the fugitive had fled the country after skipping bail and returned to his native El Salvador, but had returned to the US several years ago and was now living in Maryland under an alias and a different date of birth.

From coast to coast: Anaya, then aged 29, was initially arrested in 1999 for allegedly molesting five girls between ages 6 and 11 in Thousand Oaks, California. He was arrested on June 8 in Severn, Maryland, where he had been living under an alias

On June 8, Thousand Oaks detectives reached out to their counterparts at the Anne Arundel County Police Department in Maryland and provided them with information about Anaya.

The local police staked out a residence in Severn, Maryland, positively identified the suspect as the California fugitive and arrested him, before handing him over to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

Anaya is currently being held without bail pending his next court appearance scheduled for July 3.