Fugitive rapist and cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, who faces 124 years in state prison, was taken into custody Wednesday by Mexican police in Puerto Vallarta, U.S. authorities said.

Luster was arrested along with Duane Chapman, a bounty hunter from Hawaii who had found the fugitive in the resort city about 1,000 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border. Chapman and five associates also were in custody. Federal agents with the Mexican justice department flew with Luster to Mexico City on Wednesday night.

"We have positively identified him," FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said. "Our legal attache (in Mexico) has done so, and he is dealing with the immigration authorities in Mexico regarding his deportation."

In January, a Ventura County jury found Luster, 39, guilty in absentia of 86 criminal counts in connection with the rapes of three women inside his Mussel Shoals home. He drugged all three women and videotaped two of the rapes of the unconscious women.

Luster, heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, had fled his trial during a Christmas break. Judge Ken Riley sentenced him in February to 124 years in prison.

Mexican and U.S. officials were discussing how and when Luster would be placed in U.S. custody. He might come to Ventura County or go straight to state prison. Officials said they do not know if the process would take days or weeks.

"He may be deported (from Mexico) or we may have to go through the complete extradition process," FBI agent Ralph Boelter said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Ventura. "Extradition, of course, would take longer."

Federal and state authorities have sought Luster for five months, following up "hundreds of tips, thousands of tips" that led them to Mexico and across the United States, officials said. As many as seven Ventura County investigators and several FBI agents have been involved in the search.

The information that led to Luster's capture came June 10, when a Seattle-area couple who had vacationed in Puerto Vallarta contacted the FBI about a man they believed to be Luster. The couple had been photographed with him, and a friend apparently recognized Luster because his picture has been broadcast on television.

The couple also contacted Chapman, a colorful figure whose efforts to find Luster have been well-publicized. Chapman and several associates, including a camera crew, traveled to Puerto Vallarta and were arrested by Mexican police Wednesday after they attempted to take Luster into custody.

The same morning, an FBI agent was on his way to Puerto Vallarta to follow up on the couple's tip, Boelter said.

He defended the eight days it took the FBI to react to the tip, saying it had to be relayed from Seattle to a field office in Guadalajara, Mexico.

"There are a lot of factors you could include, chiefly that terrorism leads in Mexico are being handled faster than a fugitive lead in Mexico," he said. "I'm not offering that as an excuse, but terrorism is the FBI's priority."

According to Associated Press reports, Luster had been living in Puerto Vallarta about a month before Chapman's group tracked him down before dawn Wednesday, seizing him in a noisy scuffle that prompted neighbors to call the police.

The group headed out of Puerto Vallarta in two cars, apparently on their way to the United States with Luster, but were stopped by police outside of town.

Luster spent the last days before his arrest surfing, returning in the evenings to a $35-a-night hotel next door to the federal justice department's local office. He had stayed at the same tidy, two-story hotel a year before, The Associated Press reported.

"He seemed Mexican," hotel manager Oscar Lopez said. "He spoke (Spanish) very well."

Officials said Luster gave police a false name after his arrest Wednesday but admitted his identity when confronted by an FBI agent.

In his statement to federal authorities, Luster complained that the bounty hunters had held him against his will.

"I need help because they are trying to harm me," he said.

Bounty hunting is considered kidnapping under Mexican law, but it was not clear if Mexican prosecutors planned to file charges against Chapman and his cohorts.

Luster's victims, however, were happy with the arrest, no matter how it happened.

Barry Novack, an attorney for a victim who testified in the criminal case and is suing Luster for sexual assault, said Wednesday his client was relieved.

"Now he will have to live with his problems, and she's happy that he won't be able to brutalize any other women," Novack said.

Prosecutors said Luster took women to his home from 1996 to 2000 and raped them after giving them GHB, known as a "date-rape" drug.

A search of his home after his arrest turned up videotapes of Luster having sex with women who appeared to be either asleep or unconscious.

In one tape played in court, Luster is seen on camera having sex with a woman and saying, "That's exactly what I like in my room: a passed-out beautiful girl."

Luster's attorney Roger Diamond argued during the trial the sex was consensual, suggesting the women were feigning sleep to help Luster film pornographic videos.

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks said at the press conference Wednesday that Luster's presence in Puerto Vallarta suggests he would have committed similar crimes again.

"It is a resort area; there are a lot of young women; it's the kind of area I would have expected him," Brooks said. "The pattern of activity is that he would continue to do this."

Diamond had filed an appeal of Luster's conviction, which was set aside by the appellate court last week because he was a fugitive. He is expected to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court but could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Despite Chapman's success in finding Luster, authorities were critical of his tactics.

"He took a very dangerous action in a foreign country, and he is paying the price for it," Brooks said. "I am grateful that someone got him (Luster) into custody."

Chapman is unlikely to receive any of the $1 million bond Luster's friends and family posted, and even a $10,000 reward offered in the case might go to the couple who identified Luster, officials said.

In Mussel Shoals, neighbors said they were not surprised by Luster's capture.

"He's a spoiled rich kid ... bored with life," said Robert Brunner, 56, who has known Luster for 15 years. "If they caught him in a club in Puerto Vallarta, (he's) not going to stop."

-- Staff writer Molly Freedenberg contributed to this story.