Friday, June 10, 2011
CNN
Washington (CNN) -- Mexican drug cartels have used cash and sexual favors as tools to corrupt U.S. border and customs agents, an inspector general investigation has found.
In exchange, agents allow contraband or unauthorized immigrants through inspection lanes, protect or escort traffickers or leak sensitive information, said Charles Edwards, acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.
Testifying before a Senate subcommittee, Edwards cited the Zetas drug cartel as one of the leaders "involved increasingly in systematic corruption."
He did not elaborate on how non-cash methods of corruption, like sexual favors, have been used to corrupt agents.
Since October 2004, 127 Customs and Border Protection employees have been arrested or indicted for acts of corruption, said agency Commissioner Alan Bersin, speaking at the same hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs...[Full Article]
Labels: Border Patrol, bribery, corruption, Customs and Border Protection, drug cartel
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Detroit Free Press
A 46-year-old Canadian woman sued two unidentified female U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Wednesday, saying one of them strip-searched and groped her without justification as the other one watched at the Ambassador Bridge last March.
Loretta Van Beek of Stratford, Ontario, who said she travels to the U.S. regularly to vacation in Georgia, said agents sent her to secondary inspection because she failed to declare raspberries.
She said agents questioned her during a two-hour session, then ordered her to strip. She said one agent aggressively groped her breasts and genital area for an extended period of time while the other watched. Then they photographed and fingerprinted her and sent her back to Canada, the suit said.
Her lawyer, S. Thomas Wienner of Rochester, said she was traumatized by the incident and wants to find out whether there are other victims.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it couldn't comment on pending litigation.
Labels: Canada, Customs and Border Protection, pat-down
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Pentagon looks into violation by military aircraft
BROWNSVILLE — The U.S. Department of Defense said it was investigating the second sighting within three weeks of a Mexican military helicopter flying in U.S. airspace over rural Zapata County.
“The incident did occur and it's still under investigation,” department spokeswoman Maj. Tanya Bradsher said, confirming that the copter, believed to belong to the Mexican navy, was seen Sunday.
Rick Pauza, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, earlier in March confirmed a Mexican military helicopter hovered as long as 20 minutes on March 9 over a residential area near Falcon Lake, a reservoir on the Rio Grande.
He said CBP officials who lived in the neighborhood were among those who saw it.
Pauza said the helicopter crossed back without incident and that once the sighting was reported up the chain of the command “that was the extent of it.”
On Thursday, he said he was not aware that Sunday's reported sighting had been confirmed.
“In general, in situations where there is an actual incursion those situations are reviewed by both the United States and Mexico. They are taken seriously,” Pauza said...
Labels: Brownsville, CBP, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Defense, incursions, Mexico
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