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PHOENIX — Authorities have arrested a man in Canada in the 2001 killing of a police informant in Arizona.

Konstantin Simberg, 21, was beaten, stabbed and set on fire before he died in December 2001. His body was found in a Northern Arizona creek by hunters.

Two men were arrested, charged and convicted in the killing. But Mikhail Drachev, 24, has lived as a fugitive on a murder warrant for more than five years, Phoenix police Det. Stacie Derge said.

She said police in Toronto became aware of Drachev after his fiance told them who he was.

When police arrived at his high-rise Toronto apartment Friday night, Derge said Drachev barricaded the door with furniture. She said police then broke in and arrested Drachev, who did not struggle.

He was in the custody of Toronto police awaiting extradition to Arizona. It was unclear Saturday whether Drachev had a lawyer.

Derge said Drachev had been living in Toronto under an alias and decided a couple of weeks ago to tell his fiance his real name.

The woman looked his name up online and found his profile on the Web site of "America's Most Wanted." Derge said the woman didn't tell police about Drachev until Friday, after the couple had some sort of domestic dispute.

Derge said that although the case is more than five years old, it has stuck out for the detectives who worked on it because of its brutality.

Police believe three men beat Simberg before tying him up overnight, driving to Fossil Creek in Northern Arizona and stabbing him in the back with a knife, according to the Web site of "America's Most Wanted."

The site says the men then doused him with a flammable liquid and set him on fire. Thinking he was dead, the men covered Simberg with rocks to hide his body.

But, "America's Most Wanted" reports that Simberg wasn't dead. Instead, badly burned and bleeding, he crawled to the creek and drifted in it for about 100 yards before he died of his injuries.

Derge declined to talk about the details of Simberg's killing, saying it could hinder prosecution.

Chris Andrews, 23, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence in the killing. Dennis Tsoukanov, 25, was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving 13 years in prison.

Derge said Simberg was an acquaintance of the two men and of Drachev. She said Tsoukanov originally told police the killing was a murder-for-hire, but that he later took back the statement and never said who may have hired him and the other two men.

Lawyers for Tsoukanov and Andrews could not be reached for comment.

Derge said that when Simberg was attacked, he was on the phone with a Phoenix police detective.

Simberg was talking to Detective Tom Britt because he was a police informant in a case Britt was working on.

Police say Troy Langdon, a pharmacy manager, and friend Sean Southland hatched a plot to steal and sell 6,000 vials of the human-growth hormone Saizen, worth about $1 million wholesale and an estimated $3 million on the black market.

The two men allegedly hired Simberg and four others to steal the drug from a FedEx driver as he made his delivery to the Phoenix pharmacy.

But instead of using a gun, Simberg offered the driver $50,000, Britt said in 2002. The driver refused and the group fled, but police soon began investigating Simberg and the two others.