The Federal Bureau of Investigation was celebrating an unexpected success today after one of the fugitives on its Ten Most Wanted List, the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect that still practises polygamy, was picked up during a routine traffic stop near Las Vegas.

Warren Jeffs, 50, had been on the run for two years and is wanted in Utah and Arizona on an array of sex crime charges, including forcing teenaged girls into polygamous marriages with older men.

He is the leader - known as "the President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator" - of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a 10,000-strong community that he had ruled with a rod of iron since the death of his father, Rulon, in 2002.

Mr Jeffs is said to have between 40 and 80 wives and an estimated 56 children. He was captured when the luxury sports utility vehicle in which he was travelling was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol on Monday night because of an illegible number plate.

He initially gave the name John Findley, and produced a Florida contact lens receipt as proof, but admitted his real identity "and gave a kind of sigh" after the arrival of the FBI, said Eddie Dutchover, the trooper who pulled him over.

At the wheel of the dark red Cadillac Escalade was Isaac Jeffs, the fugitive's 32-year-old full brother, and one of Warren's wives, Naomi Jeffs, also 32, both of whom were released without charge.

Mrs Jeffs, who is said to have long blonde hair down to her knees, was once the favourite wife of Warren Jeff's father, Rulon, but is one of at least a dozen of Rulon's widows who married Warren when the sect's patriarch died at the age of 92, still waiting for the Second Coming of Christ.

Authorities said that they found three wigs, 15 mobile phones, $54,000 in cash and $10,000 in gift cards in the vehicle, as well as many unopened envelopes also thought to contain money. But although Mr Jeffs was described as "cordial" during his interrogation, he was refusing to tell the FBI where he had been hiding.

The FLDS broke from the mainstream Mormon church over a century ago when it decided to disavow the practice of polygamy. The church's members are based in the twin communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, although it also has a large ranch, known as the YFZ Ranch after a song written by Warren Jeffs himself, near Eldorado, Texas, and a colony in Bountiful in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Mr Jeffs was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list in May, alongside a motley collection of gangsters, murderers and the international terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. He had a $100,000 FBI bounty on his head.

"The arrest is a major step towards ending Jeffs' tyrannical rule in Colorado City and the FLDS," said Terry Goddard, the Arizona Attorney-General. "He showed flagrant disregard for subpoenas and arrest warrants ande told his followers the law didn't apply to him. His arrest should make it clear to everyone that Jeffs, like all the rest of us, is subject to the rule of law."

The fugtive polygamist will appear at Las Vegas Township Court tomorrow for an extradition hearing, although it is unclear whether he will be face charges first in Arizona or Utah. Utah prosecutors have charged him with being an accomplice to rape and say that they a witness ready to testify that he forced her into a polygamous marriage at the age of 16.

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