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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cartel corruption reaches into the ranks of U.S. border agents, officials say

By Daniel Hernandez
Los Angeles Times

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly luring U.S. border agents into smuggling operations with offers of cash and sex, authorities acknowledged in Washington last week.

Top officials in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told a Senate subcommittee during a hearing on Thursday that Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are attempting to generate "systematic corruption" among the ranks of U.S. customs and border patrol agents, forcing the agency to open hundreds of internal investigations on employees.

Charles Edwards, acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, told the subcommittee that corruption on the border has taken the form of "cash bribes, sexual favors, and other gratuities in return for allowing contraband or undocumented aliens through primary inspection lanes or even protecting or escorting border crossings," according to a transcript of the official's testimony.

Since 2004, authorities have made 127 arrests or indictments against border employees for acts of corruption "including drug smuggling, alien smuggling, money laundering, and conspiracy," said Alan Bersin, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner.

The figure is small relative to the size of the U.S. border force -- more than 20,700 officers.

But as previously reported by La Plaza, the Customs and Border Protection agency, which operates within the Department of Homeland Security, has doubled the size of its ranks since 2004 in the push during the Bush administration to beef up security on the border. Only one in 10 of those recent hires underwent polygraph tests, an investigation by the Associated Press found. Of those tested, 60% were deemed unsuitable for hiring, suggesting that many agents now patrolling the U.S. border with Mexico may have joined "with corruption already in mind."

"CBP found that its workforce was younger, less experienced, and in need of seasoned supervisors," Bersin said of the hiring boom.

The commissioner added: "The accelerated hiring pace under which we operated between 2006 and 2008 –- and, frankly, mistakes from which we are learning –- exposed critical organizational and individual vulnerabilities within CBP."

Bersin said the agency was seeking to correct the corruption issue, pointing to a widening caseload of investigations into criminal misconduct among agents and employees. Last year, Congress passed the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010, which requires that all applicants to law enforcement positions in U.S. Custom and Border Protection be screened by a polygraph test.

The corruption revelations come as Washington prepares to confront another scandal related to the drug war in hearings scheduled this week. Monday, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Vista) is set to lead the first congressional hearing on the government's failed "Fast and Furious" operation, in which hundreds of assault weapons were permitted to "walk" into Mexico and into the hands of cartel hitmen in an effort to track them to high-profile drug targets.

The program continued despite the vigorous protests of agents in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, The Times has reported. Whistleblowers claim it contributed to the extreme violence that has gripped much of northern Mexico. One of the operation's guns was involved in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona last December, and another was traced to the shooting death of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, killed on a road in Mexico in February.

5 comments:

  1. Didnt we just see this article?

    Anyway, this does it. I give up. You guys are right. The drug war is a failure. I bet you not 10% of what is coming into this country is being stopped at the border. What a waste. Not another dollar should be spent on the border, or on mexico for that matter. Lets focus on investing in some social programs, not helicopters.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If the US had the political will, they would close the border with Mexico completely until the Mexican government acted. The threat of zero US dollars flowing into Mexico would last maybe a couple of days before things would change.

    No tourism, no goods, no wire transfers home and the pressure to change in Mexico would be fierce. We do it to Cuba and they are absolutely no threat. The cartels are terrorist organizations and should be treated as such.

    Oh, and it would hurt me too. I live and work in Monterrey...

    ReplyDelete
  3. A Liberal newspaper pointing fingers at the border agents as corrupt and not showing the true corruption in Washington, priceless. The policies of the Obama Admin in not enforcing current Federal Laws is one of the main reasons the border is currently a joke. It wont get better until 2012 and a change in the officials in charge.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i am with all you guys..no more drug war ..either here or abroad...

    food not bombs ya'll..

    and straight up

    SECURE OUR BORDERS ..NO CONTRABAND IN ..NO CONTRABAND OUT

    if you want to smoke dope..grow your own ..and as far as coke ..i don't think the coca bush grows here ..and meth heads..they are sort of self regulating..short run

    how about war on poison ivy..and fire ants..and ignorance

    ReplyDelete
  5. Why, 'Lito 'brito, you closet Hippy!

    'food not bombs ya'll..'

    And we all the time though of you as a closeted cop????

    ReplyDelete

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