Thread: At border, rise seen in corrupt workers

Corruption, corruption everwhere...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... rrupt.html

At border, rise seen in corrupt workers


Of 172 suspected, 72 are in S.D. region
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 22, 2006

Those who enforce the laws at our borders are more and more frequently breaking it, and a large percentage of this corruption is local.

More than forty percent of all Department of Homeland Security workers now under suspicion of corruption around the country – 72 out of 172 – are in San Diego and Imperial counties, a top investigator said.

That's in addition to the government workers who have pleaded guilty or been sentenced in San Diego federal court in cases of corruption, drug running and immigrant smuggling over the past year: five Border Patrol agents, three border inspectors and two members of the Navy.

The 72 officials under investigation locally are part of a distressing national trend, said Jack Hook, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security inspector general's San Diego office.

“We don't want corrupt law enforcement officers at the border or anywhere else,” Hook said.

Corrupt workers allow smugglers to bring in illegal immigrants and drugs but also pose a national security risk, said James Wong, who heads local internal affairs investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Who knows what else is in the car?” Wong said.

Nationwide, many of the Customs and Border Protection workers arrested in the past two years were veterans on the job for many years, said James Tomsheck, head of the agency's internal affairs division.

“I'm deeply concerned,” Tomsheck said. “The numbers are startling.”

Tomsheck said that he and other superiors in Washington, D.C., are reviewing their anti-corruption methods as a result of the increase.

Working with investigators, they have identified some of the telltale signs that workers are corrupt, but Tomsheck wouldn't reveal them.

People familiar with corruption along the border say workers betray their oaths over the lure of romance, misplaced feelings of obligation to family or friends, or frustration with a failing system.

The No. 1 reason is no mystery, said Harold Washington, who heads a local union that represents border inspectors, the gatekeepers in San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and elsewhere.

“Greed,” Washington said. “Simply put, greed.”


Rising smuggling fees
The temptation to get around customs and immigration checkpoints has been around for as long as there has been a border, and corruption has been a part of it just as long.
“It's a problem we're going to have to deal with for the foreseeable future,” said FBI agent Andrew Black, who heads a local anti-corruption task force. “I don't see it going away.”

It's not necessarily surprising that San Diego and Imperial counties have the largest number of workers being investigated. San Ysidro is the busiest international border crossing in the world, and San Diego is the largest metropolitan area in the United States along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Black and other anti-corruption investigators say they are busier than ever from here to the Gulf of Mexico.

“A spike in corruption incidents would be expected with a combination of new recruits and higher smuggling fees and so on,” said Peter Andreas, co-author of a recent book on international crime, “Policing the Globe.”

Operation Gatekeeper and border crackdowns since the 2001 terrorist attacks made it more difficult to sneak drugs and people into the United States, raising the price of passage, said Andreas, a professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

“Smugglers have more resources to use for corruption, and they have a greater incentive to devote money for corruption,” he said.

Smugglers use those resources to recruit women to seduce border inspectors, to scout for weaknesses in the system and to pay bribes, said Wong, the internal affairs investigator.

“We know that they have gone so far as to rent rooms that overlook the (border crossings) and set up telescopes so they can get an ever better view,” he said. “They've become very, very sophisticated.”

Union officials say that poor screening in the rapid increase in the hiring of border guards has caused standards to drop so badly that one of the corrupt Border Patrol agents wasn't even a U.S. citizen.

“There's a sense of urgency to get people on board as quickly as possible,” said T.J. Bonner, head of the union that represents Border Patrol agents.

As a result, Bonner suspects, there are more corrupt agents out there.

It's a boon for the criminals who make billions smuggling drugs and people across the border.

“A corrupt border official was always the best thing these smuggling organizations could have,” said Jan Ronis, a San Diego defense lawyer who has represented corrupt agents.


Long investigations
While the number of arrests is tiny compared with the thousands of honest workers protecting the border locally, experts say it is unclear whether there are more corrupt officials or more are getting caught.
Good numbers are hard to come by in part because of a reorganization in border policing after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Corruption investigations take a long time, so arrests now are the result of investigations that began a year or two ago, making statistics harder to analyze.

Many investigations don't result in arrests.

Some tips are unfounded, such as those from smugglers or illegal immigrants who are trying to get out of trouble by making false claims.

“You can't just get an allegation in and go out tomorrow and arrest the guy,” Wong said.

Prosecutors want proof that a corrupt official was paid off, because there are other explanations for letting people or goods across the border unchecked.

“The person could just be inept or lazy,” Wong said.

Sometimes, investigation targets quit or flee the country, he said.

Last summer, brothers Raúl and Fidel Villarreal quit the Border Patrol, reportedly when they got word of an investigation, which is continuing.

They have not been charged, and Ronis, their lawyer, said they are willing to return to San Diego, but prosecutors haven't said the Villarreals are wanted.

Before making an arrest, investigators try to create an airtight case, sometimes using wiretaps, undercover agents and sting operations.

That is how longtime border inspector Mike Gilliland got caught.


An unusual suspect
Together with two Mexican women who ran smuggling rings, Gilliland helped hundreds of people enter the United States unchecked through the Otay Mesa crossing, where he worked.
One of the smugglers told an undercover FBI agent that she could guarantee safe passage because she was working with a corrupt inspector.

“A lot of her clients are people who have criminal backgrounds that cannot afford to be apprehended,” the FBI agent wrote in a report after meeting with the smuggler, who said she was married to a Mexican police officer.

Aurora Torres López said the people she smuggled crossed without papers at Gilliland's gate.

Earlier this year, investigators using wiretaps heard Gilliland discussing plans in code with the smugglers.

Gilliland said he got as much as $120,000 from his crimes. He pleaded guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison at a sentencing scheduled for Jan. 12.

Gilliland, a retired Marine, joined the Customs Service 16 years ago, before it was absorbed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Described as level-headed and professional, Gilliland, 44, of Chula Vista was near the top of the pay scale, said Washington, the union official, who worked alongside him.

“The inspector's inspector,” Washington said.

He said anti-corruption steps at the border crossing make it one of the most scrutinized workplaces he knows of.

Inspectors at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa aren't told their lane assignments ahead of time, can't use cell phones and are backed up by surprise checks of cars before and after they file past their booths.

Such checks are important, said Peter Nuñez, who oversaw law enforcement at the Treasury Department in the early 1990s after an earlier wave of border corruption.

“You cannot design a system in recruiting, selecting, hiring and training people that will absolutely immunize you from future corruption,” Nuñez said. “The whole idea is to try to create a culture of honesty.”

“We don't want corrupt law enforcement officers at the border or anywhere else,” Hook said.

I guess this would be the reason that the two border patrol that were trying to enforce the law are going to prison while the drug smuggler goes free.