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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

CBP agent gets 17 years for bribes, smuggling

Jacqueline Armendariz
The Brownsville Herald

A Brownsville man was sentenced Wednesday to 17 years in prison for drug trafficking, human smuggling and bribery, crimes committed while he was a Customs and Border Protection inspector, authorities announced.

Luis Enrique Ramirez, 39, pleaded guilty in March to being a member of a drug-trafficking organization from November 2007 to January 2009, U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno said in a press release.

Ramirez is no longer a Customs and Border Protection officer.

He was convicted of allowing more than 26 pounds of cocaine to be driven through a primary inspection lane he was manning, conspiring with others to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States for money and accepting bribes, authorities said.

He was sentenced to 204 months in federal prison.

He reportedly disappeared months before he was named in a federal indictment dated April 14, 2009.

More than a year later, he was arrested, on Oct. 30, 2010, when he tried to leave Matamoros and enter Brownsville.

Ramirez received the statutory maximum 120 months for each of the two counts of alien smuggling, the statutory maximum of 180 months for the bribery conviction, as well as 204 months for drug smuggling, according to the release.

The sentences for his crimes are to run concurrently, the release said.

Following his prison term he will serve 10 years of supervised release, authorities said.

U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen also entered a money judgment in the amount of $500,000 against Ramirez, a sum representing the proceeds of his criminal activity, the release said.

Court records indicate that Ramirez received at least $800,000 in bribes.

Authorities said factors in Ramirez’s sentencing were his recruitment of other individuals, his position as a high-level public official, his acceptance of multiple bribes totaling more than $5,000 and his use of his position as a public official to facilitate the illegal entry persons and narcotics into United States.

Ramirez’s sentencing was initially scheduled for June 6, but later changed to July 6.

According to court documents, Ramirez said that while in Mexico, he had been subject to illegal torture. He also said he was kidnapped, tortured and drugged by members of an armed cartel.

Ramirez said his kidnapping was ordered by U.S. law enforcement officials, who wanted him brought back to the United States, according to the court documents.

The document was filed in 2010 in an attempt to get the federal charges dropped against Ramirez because of an “illegal extradition.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office countered the accusations with a document in which the government “denies it had any involvement in the alleged kidnapping and torture of the defendant.”

The Ramirez case was investigated by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI, CBP Internal Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector.

25 comments:

  1. Ramirez is no longer a Customs and Border Protection officer.

    Noooooooo really???

    Anyway he is an idiot I hope he gets what he deserves in the big house!

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  2. Eh quique, ¿Valió la pena?

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  3. Scumbag! May your cartel masters sodomize you longer... You betrayed everyone that defends this country! You Maggot! You should have eaten your gun - you piece of trash...

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  4. Stop hiring Hispanics as CBP Officers! Problem solved.

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  5. So apparently being Hispanic makes you a traitor? @2:46 You're as low as that scumbag for believing in stereotypes.

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  6. 2:46 no i feel the same way not because i think lower of hispanics. but the cartels will leverage that fact and wether or not he took it to get rich or they extorted the guy or for what ever effin reason this tard did what he did i believe the cartels will target the hispanics more for this kind of stuff. and the majority of all law enforcment i have ever come across uses steriotypes. i was to the point of arrest being a hispanic by a hispanic cop for walking home one day "i looked suspicious" bullshit!
    and i was told by a deputy once for driving with my hispanic friends at the age of 17 "a car full of mexicans...thats pretty suspicious" we were all wearing abercrombie we coulnd have been more coconutty that day. 4:42 open your eyes racism is everywhere!

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  7. Mexicans would sell their grandmother if the price is right . Lol !

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  8. @2:46 <-- poor idiot, being hispanic doesn't makes you a corrupt officer, two CBP white officers were arrested a few years ago in el paso for the same reason. there are whites, blacks, hispanics and chinese people working for the drug cartels all over North America.

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  9. "more coconutty that day. 4:42 open your eyes racism is everywhere"

    Amazing. He's able to connect a racial epithet and the word racism within 6 words of each other.

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  10. CBP= customs and border protection officer

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  11. @ 8:36
    Coconutty is a racial epithet? Never heard that one before

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  12. Dirty BP agents are a serious problem for those of us working the border. Some BP agents want to know way too much about where we were, what information we collected, what we accomplished and didn't accomplish. But we don't know which BP agents are clean and which are dirty. One has to be honest with unfamiliar BP agents but never tell too much. A dirty BP agent can cause a lot of very serious problems.

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  13. Ramirez was abducted and tourtured by a cartel ( CDG? Zetas?) thats why he looks beat up. The question is how did ICE and FBI know when he was being released by the cartel?

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  14. @ 9:24
    He was not a border patrol he was customs and border protection officer. Not the same thing

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  15. Another one of the valleys finest caught " con las manos en la masa"

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  16. Death Penalty, we have too many people in prison as it is, he was an official who betrayed his country, burn him.

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  17. It's scumb like this Bozo that gives us mexican-americans a bad name.... I am Tejano born and raised here in the USA and I would never betray my country and give in to them Loser criminals in Mexico... but yes white, black red etc. every race has low lifes like this guy.

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  18. "Coconutty is a racial epithet? Never heard that one before"

    Here's the acid test. Do you ever call someone that as a complement?

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  19. It's still going to continue happening regardless of how long they give him....maybe this will just open their eyes a bit more.

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  20. @ 2:46 Hey amigo,hiring only white gringos as CBP then ? But they no "peeek n iz spaneesh"

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  21. Coconut is Brown on the outside and White on the inside.
    or as i say, Gringo Nalgas Prietas

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  22. IT SHOULD BE AUTOMATIC LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE! THAT WOULD HELP STOP THAT SHIT!

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  23. This filty asshole should spend his time at hard labor breaking rocks in the desert or maybe he should do his time at Guantameno Bay Prison, a fitting place for people like him!!
    He betrayed his country when he bent over for the devil! 17 Years of Federal time is a long, long time. Hes no different than a teacher who rapes his students!!
    He betrayed the high standards were expected of him by his country and for that he will waste away alone in prison!!

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  24. Ya let's not hire Hispanics........will let all the white guys from the Midwest deal with the problems they just figured out existed. It takes bad ass Hispanics to fight this shit and I'm Hispanic but I'm American and care about this country. Hes a piece and shouldn't be the face of those who are really making the border safer

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  25. He is a exelent personn

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