Pubdate: Fri, 13 May 2005
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author:  Arthur H. Rotstein, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corruption.htm (Cocaine)

FBI NABS TROOPS, OFFICERS IN DRUG STING

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Pretending to be cocaine traffickers, undercover
FBI agents in Arizona snared 16 current and former law enforcement
officers and U.S. soldiers who accepted more than $222,000 in bribes
to help move the drugs past checkpoints, the government said Thursday.

Those charged include a former Immigration and Naturalization Service
inspector, a former Army sergeant, a former federal prison guard,
seven members of the Arizona Army National Guard, five members of the
Arizona Department of Corrections and a police officer, officials said.

All 16 agreed to plead guilty to being part of a bribery and
corruption conspiracy and were scheduled to enter pleas Thursday in
federal court, said Noel Hillman, a Justice Department official.

Each faced a single conspiracy count carrying a maximum prison term of
five years and a $250,000 fine, though all could be entitled to
probation, Hillman said.

The defendants in the nearly 3-year-long sting were not arrested and
agreed to cooperate with an investigation expected to bring more
arrests and involve people from additional agencies, said Hillman and
FBI Agent Jana D. Monroe, who is in charge of the bureau's operations
in Arizona.

Hillman said the defendants drove cocaine shipments past checkpoints
manned by the government while they wore official uniforms, carried
identification and used official vehicles.

"Many individuals charged were sworn personnel having the task of
protecting society and securing America's borders," Monroe said.
"The importance of these tasks cannot be overstated and we cannot
tolerate, nor can the American people afford, this type of
corruption."

Hillman and Monroe said the FBI was tipped about an individual and set
up the fake trafficking organization in December 2001. Military and
police personnel then were lured with money to help distribute the
cocaine or allow it to pass through checkpoints they were guarding,
Hillman said.

Authorities engaged in an elaborate effort to determine that the
defendants were predisposed to taking bribes, he said.

One defendant, John M. Castillo, 30, was on duty as an INS inspector
at a border checkpoint in Nogales in April 2002 when he twice allowed
a truck he believed was carrying at least 88 pounds of cocaine to
enter the country without being inspected, Hillman said.

Castillo later sold INS documents to an undercover FBI agent that
fraudulently provided for entry of undocumented immigrants into the
United States, he said.

In another instance in 2002, several of those charged met an aircraft
flown by undercover FBI agents that was carrying 132 pounds of cocaine
at a remote desert airstrip, he added.

In full uniform, they supervised the loading of the cocaine into two
military Humvees assigned to the National Guard and another government
vehicle, then drove to a resort hotel in Phoenix - where another
undercover agent posing as a trafficker paid them in cash, Hillman
said.

The FBI used real cocaine seized in other operations, the officials
said. The 16 suspects transported more than 1,230 pounds of cocaine,
the officials said.

The cocaine, with a street value of nearly $18.5 million, never
ultimately left FBI possession, officials said.
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