Massive Corruption in the U.S. Border Patrol?
BY Herschel Smith
13 years, 2 months ago
From UPI:
Two former law enforcement officers say their allegations of Mexican cartels corrupting U.S. law officers and politicians have brought no investigations.
The El Paso Times reports Greg Gonzales, a retired Dona Ana County sheriff’s deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a rancher and former New Mexico state livestock investigator, said their whistle-blowing led to threats against them and retaliation.
The Times said both had been confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with an 18-month investigation.
They said the FBI dropped them after “big names” on the U.S. side of the border were revealed in drug investigations. Dutton said an FBI official who had worked in El Paso sent a memo to area law enforcement agencies urging them not to talk to or have anything to do with him or Gonzales.
FBI Special Agent Michael Martinez said the FBI cannot comment on former or current relationships with confidential sources.
“I lost my job for a security company at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces because I would not keep my mouth shut, and someone threatened me by holding a knife to my throat,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales and Dutton say one or both of them had helped with federal investigations, including one that led to the arrest of a special agent, convicted of weapons-related charges after a weapon he sold was found at the scene of a Chihuahua firefight between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers.
Dutton said he had told the FBI street gangs working for the Juarez cartel had put a hit out on an FBI special agent.
Gonzales and Dutton said they have contacted lawmakers and the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch about the lack of investigations.
Analysis & Commentary
This report is very involved and complicated; see the El Paso Times for a more detailed report. Both the U.S. Border Patrol and the FBI are buried neck deep in this sordid affair. On a related note, there is currently a jailed U.S. Border Patrol agent who is in prison for drug running activities and assisting the Mexican cartels. His report is extremely self-serving, and no exoneration is possible for his crimes regardless of how hard he tries. So his report must be tempered by the fact that he is apparently attempting to “explain and justify” his actions. Exaggeration might be present in his report. Nonetheless, his report is chilling reading.
A corrupt U.S. border agent sitting in a federal prison cell is offering a chilling view of the Mexican drug cartels whose drug shipments he protected for years in return for hefty bribes.
He is so terrified of the cartel’s famous vicious streak that he fears for his own life — and the lives of his family — if he is identified as speaking to ABC News. He depicts a dangerously paranoid crime organization that has spies throughout U.S. law enforcement …
“In my opinion they have unlimited power..they have informants of all kinds, good and bad,” he said. “They have informants in the city level, county level and, from what they claim, federal” …
In a disturbing trend, new figures show 122 current or former U.S. federal agents and employees of the Customs and Border Protection agency have been arrested or indicted for corruption since October 2004. It’s not just for money, some agents are accepting payment from the cartels in the form of sexual favors.
Just last week, a police officer, a state trooper and three TSA officers in Florida and Connecticut were among 20 arrested for allegedly running an interstate drug ring. “
Corruption in some doesn’t mean corruption in all, and sweeping judgments can be overstated. But when cartel violence, largesse and corruption have begun to reach into U.S. law enforcement in a significant way, it’s time for not only a comprehensive agency wide investigation (the Border Patrol and the FBI included), but probably a good house cleaning as well. These kinds of problems cannot be allowed to fester. Corruption breeds corruption. Unfortunately, in the wake of the Holder leadership and Operation Fast and Furious, no one can entrust such an investigation to the Justice Department. If not them, then who?
On September 21, 2011 at 3:18 pm, RRK said:
There also several National Guard soldiers sitting in prison cells because they got caught smuggling for the Cartels while they were guarding the border.
The Cartels have a saying that goes something like take the silver or take the lead (take the money or get killed). This is how they turn politicians, law enforcement, and the military south of the border. With as much money as envolved nearly anyone can be turned and with the Cartels reach now extending further and further into the US it will only be a matter of time before this threat starts happening here.
It is already proven that the Cartels do intelligence operations against US law enforcement it would not be hard for them to start singling out people that would help ease their way across the border and even with US distribution.
Sadly without significant resources to curb the desire for drugs this is a war without end and one that cannot be one. As long as their is a need their will be a supply.
On September 21, 2011 at 4:01 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Well, it cannot be won if it will not be fought like the war against warlords that it is.
On September 21, 2011 at 5:09 pm, RRK said:
I agree I would like to see the Cartels declared a terrorist organization and fought like terrorist organizations. I actually wrote an intervention strategy for a fictional South American drug exporter that used the full extent of the US and regional military forces. This plan went from crop eradication through full boots on the ground military response with Reapers patroling overhead.