Posted: Thursday, June 2, 2016 1:51 pm
Staff Reports

CASA GRANDE – A recent Border Patrol operation conducted outside of Casa Grande resulted in the arrest of two suspected drug smuggling scouts, one of whom assaulted an agent, authorities said.

At 5:30 a.m. Sunday, the Casa Grande Station Mountain Team launched a scout operation which targeted an observation post in the Sawtooth Mountain Range south of Casa Grande. Scouts, who are hired by criminal organizations to provide guidance to human and narcotic smugglers have assaulted two agents in the past two months.

As agents approached the observation post, one subject assaulted a member of the team in an attempt to flee the rocky mountainside. However, after a brief struggle and the deployment of pepper spray, agents were able to gain control of the subject and take him into custody, the Border Patrol said in a release.

Identified as a national of Mexico, the subject was charged with assault on a federal agent as well as attempt and conspiracy, a common charge for suspected scouts.

A second subject, also a national of Mexico, was arrested and is facing charges for attempt and conspiracy. Additionally, he has an active felony warrant for homicide in Mexico.

Also recovered at the observation post was four solar panels, two binoculars, eight cell phones, two radios, and two radio chargers.

Agent Vicente Paco, acting branch communications chief for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, said the operation was a regular interdiction of criminal scouts based on information received about the scout’s location. He declined to say how the information was obtained. In general, he said such tips can come from the public, other law enforcement or agents calling for backup.

Paco said there hasn’t necessarily been an increase in scout activity in southern Arizona, but the agency has gotten better at separating scouts out for prosecution from normal smugglers or illegal aliens.

“In the past, discerning who was a scout was one of the biggest challenges facing the agency,” he said.

Paco said two years ago agents got together with prosecutors and figured out the parameters for a conspiracy prosecution, which include the type of equipment seized in an operation, such as solar-powered radios and binoculars.

“In the last two years there has been 23 arrests and convictions of scouts,” he said.

Paco said the Casa Grande team, whose agents emphasize rapid response capabilities in remote and rugged terrain, are very successful in their operations.

In Fiscal Year 2015, Tucson Sector agents had 87 assaults which accounted for over 20 percent of the assaults on Border Patrol agents nationwide, according to the agency.

Paco said he didn’t have a breakdown of where the Tucson sector ranks in the number of assaults in comparison to other sectors. He said assaults can range from a suspect shoving an agent and resisting arrest to shooting at an agent.

He said in the most recent case it was the suspect physically resisting arrest.

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