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Border Patrol agents accused of taking bribes

Associated Press
Mar. 9, 2006 02:35 PM


SAN DIEGO - Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were arrested Thursday on charges of sneaking illegal immigrants out of jail in exchange for $300,000 in cash bribes.

Mario Alvarez, 44, and Samuel McClaren, 43, released inmates from an immigration jail to a smuggling ring that operates in El Centro, about 120 miles east of San Diego, according to a federal complaint filed in January and unsealed Thursday. The smugglers then allegedly took the migrants to Los Angeles.

The agents were assigned to a joint effort between the Border Patrol and Mexico's attorney general's office under which migrants arrested in the United States were deported to Mexico for prosecution, the complaint said. McClaren ran the program from July 2003 to the end of last year.

Some of the released inmates allegedly belonged to the smuggling ring. The complaint said the Border Patrol agents brought two smugglers across the border into the United States in a government vehicle in September 2004 and arranged the release of one of them from jail three months later in exchange for $10,000.

In October 2005, Alvarez signed a warrant that falsely stated a migrant was deported, when, in fact, he was dropped off at a Wal-Mart parking lot for $6,000, according to the complaint.

Both men, of Imperial, were charged with conspiracy, bribery, making false statements, migrant smuggling and filing false tax returns.