http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...m8inspect.html

Inspector arrested in smuggling case

Illegal immigrants said to be waved in
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
June 8, 2006

Carloads of immigrants entered the country illegally through an Otay Mesa border-crossing lane staffed by an inspector on the take from smugglers, authorities said yesterday.

The inspector, Michael Gilliland, 44, of Chula Vista, was arrested Tuesday and appeared in San Diego federal court yesterday, as did a Tijuana woman, Marina Pérez de García, who authorities say arranged the smuggling.

Prosecutor Stephen Tokarz said the pair could flee if allowed out of jail, and a magistrate judge ordered them held without bail until a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.
In an 11-page affidavit filed in court, FBI agent Terry C. Reed Jr. said Gilliland, a Customs and Border Protection inspector, conspired with two women who independently smuggled people through his inspection lane in exchange for thousands of dollars.

The women “accept referrals from people seeking a 'guaranteed' or 'sure thing' to cross into the United States,” Reed wrote.

The second woman, a Chula Vista resident whose house was searched Tuesday, has not been charged. Authorities would not say why.

Gilliland failed to check the citizenship status of people entering in vans and cars, and failed to enter the license plates of the vehicles into a computer system used to track border crossings, the FBI agent said.

The investigation was done by a task force assigned to ferret out border corruption, and included wiretaps in which Gilliland and the women were heard talking about when vehicles loaded with illegal immigrants could cross, according to the affidavit.

Undercover agents witnessed Gilliland leave one of the women's homes with a plastic bag they suspected was full of cash, Reed wrote.

A week ago, San Diego police working with the task force pulled over a van shortly after it crossed the border through Gilliland's lane, the agent wrote. Inside, they found nine illegal immigrants – four of them lying in the rear cargo area – and the driver, who also was in the country illegally.

A few hours later, agents listened on a wiretap as García told Gilliland about the bust. She told him the driver was her cousin.

“She's not going to say anything, right?” Gilliland asked. “She doesn't know anything?”

“No,” García said.

Minutes later, the cousin told Border Patrol agents she was to have been paid $1,000 to drive the van, the FBI agent wrote.

The cousin said she had been drawn into smuggling by García and her sister, who told them they knew an inspector at the crossing with whom they had “a business arrangement.”

Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com