Pubdate: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Page: 1 Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Author: Deborah Tedford STUDY SLAMS CORRUPTION ON BORDER U.S. Employees On Payrolls Of Mexican Drug Lords, Report Says Mexican drug lords are bribing federal agents to give them information, wave their smugglers through border checkpoints and even employing them to bring drugs into the United States, a federal report says. After a yearlong study, the General Accounting Office reported that it found that drug interdiction efforts in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California are compromised by federal agents and other field staff on the payrolls of the Mexican drug cartels. The report concluded there is a "continuing and serious threat" to corrupt Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, U.S. Customs Service inspectors and Border Patrol agents along the Mexican border and the agencies are not doing enough to stop it. "The enormous sums of money being generated by drug trafficking have increased the threat for bribery," said the report to the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. INS and Customs Service officials said the threat of corruption is real, but only with a small number of employees. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Colgate and William Riley, director of planning for the Customs Service, noted that only 28 INS and customs employees were prosecuted for drug-related corruption along the Southwest border from 1992 to 1997. "Department of Justice (which includes the INS) believes that 28 instances of corruption out of 9,600 agents over about a six-year period is a commendable demonstration of the integrity of ours and (customs) personnel," he said. Riley also pointed out that GAO's conclusions are based on a limited review of criminal cases and internal affairs files -- 123 randomly selected corruption cases from fiscal 1997, of which 72 involved INS and 51 involved customs. Although he readily acknowledged there are procedural problems that must be addressed, Riley maintained that "corruption is not endemic in the agency." Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, agreed that corruption is a serious problem on the border, but said Congress shoulders much of the blame for underfunding both agencies. "The first line of defense is customs and they are insufficiently staffed and underequipped," he said. With cross-border trade up more than 200 percent since the passage of NAFTA, Rodriguez said it often takes days for commercial traffic to clear the border. For example, he said, customs has only two X-ray machines that can scan an 18-wheeler, and 5,000 trucks per day crowd the checkpoint at Laredo alone. About 1,300 INS and 2,000 customs inspectors must inspect foot and vehicular traffic at the 25 entry points along the 1,962-mile border from Brownsville to Imperial Beach, Calif., 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Last year, the Customs Service logged 77 million vehicle entries into Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Between those ports of entry, about 6,300 INS Border Patrol agents patrol vast expanses of sparsely inhabited terrain in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The GAO cited five ways that federal employees helped drug smugglers, with examples of each: - - Waving vehicles through without inspection. For several years, it said, an immigration inspector in El Paso gave smugglers his work schedule and lane assignment, allowing them to drive vehicles loaded with up to 1,000 pounds of marijuana through without inspection. - - Coordinating movement of drugs in remote areas between ports of entry. A Border Patrol agent in Douglas, Ariz., it said, had telephoned marijuana smugglers to tell them where loads could be brought across. The agent then picked the loads up in his government vehicle and took it to another location. - - Transporting drugs past Border Patrol checkpoints. An agent in Falfurrias drove marijuana through the checkpoints manned by his friends, then deposited it at a safe house before returning to work. - - Selling the drugs themselves. One Border Patrol agent in Naco, Ariz., seized drugs, then sold them to dealers. - - Selling drug intelligence information. A customs operational analysis specialist was paid to tip off importers suspected of smuggling drugs. The GAO concluded that INS and the Customs Service failed to fully implement employee integrity measures or evaluate procedural weaknesses revealed in the cases that were prosecuted. Many long-term employees did not receive advanced integrity training and the agencies failed to complete the required employee re-investigations every five years for more than three-fourths of the personnel scheduled to have them during fiscal 1995-1997. Financial disclosure information was either too limited or not reviewed, the GAO found. Full implementation of those policies would identify employees who were at risk of being corrupted, the report stated. One immigration inspector told GAO interviewers that he became involved with a drug smuggler because he had substantial credit card debt and was on the verge of bankruptcy. A more complete financial disclosure, the GAO said, would have raised red flags when a midlevel Border Patrol agent, who had no credit card debt or mortgage, acquired a 40-acre ranch with an indoor, Olympic-size swimming pool, five cars, a van, two boats, 100 weapons and $45,000 in treasury bills. GAO also recommended that traffic be randomly assigned to inspections lane at border crossings. "Both INS and customs have policies and procedures designed to ensure the integrity of their employees. However, neither agency is taking full advantage of its policies, procedures and the lessons to be learned from closed corruption cases to fully address the increased threat of employee corruption on the Southwest border," the report stated. Government witnesses have testified in several drug trials that U.S. officials took payoffs from smugglers who brought cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine across the Mexico border. Drug cartel members testified in 1996 that drug kingpin Juan Garcia Abrego kept a stash of cash and gifts for U.S. law enforcement officers to help bring in large amounts of cocaine. Two INS detention officers and one former INS officer used an agency bus to ferry cocaine and marijuana past a federal checkpoint in Brownsville while taking illegal immigrants back into Mexico. A 1995 investigation also found that drugs were readied for pick-up at an INS facility in Brownsville. And in 1997, six former law enforcement officers in Donna, Texas, were indicted for helping traffickers smuggle 1,700 pounds of marijuana across the border. But INS spokesman Greg Gagne said the GAO did not give the agency credit for programs that are in place, such as the leadership and ethics training center in Dallas, or consider the effects of years of underfunding. Rodriguez said he has asked that 2,000 additional customs inspectors and agents be hired nationwide and that $1.2 billion be given to the agency over seven years to upgrade the computer and automation system that processes commercial traffic at land ports of entry. He told the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee on Tuesday that the increase is necessary because of the growing trade across the U.S.-Mexico border and crackdown on narcotics smuggling. "These individuals are trying to do a job without sufficient equipment or personnel. They aren't even fully computerized," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D