SAN DIEGO – Federal agents arrested five men Tuesday night and seized a catamaran cruiser that was carrying almost 5,000 pounds of marijuana valued at
2.5 million, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
The engines on the 48-foot boat had broken down in Mexican waters and was towed into the U.S. Inspection area at Shelter Island about 9 p.m. by a
private company, said ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack.
The boat, which is registered in the U.S. and is named the Sea View, was searched and the marijuana was discovered, she said.
Agents, assisted by Harbor Police, arrested one man aboard the boat and four men who were waiting for it in a parked white Mercedes Benz, Mack said.
Agents found 203 bundles of marijuana. totaling 4,883 pounds, concealed in a specially constructed roof section of the cabin, Mack said.
The compartment was “professionally constructed to blend into the contours of the cabin,” Mack said.
The boat, the car and the drugs were seized, and the men are being held at the Metropolitan Correction Center downtown, Mack said.
The man on the boat was identified as Scott Wilske, 48, a U.S. citizen who lives in Rosarito. The others were identified as Robert Torres, 39, also a
U.S. citizen living in Rosarito, Luis Lizarraga-Rocha, 38, Mario Flores-Araujo, 47, and Jesus Humberto Beltran, 39, all of Mexico.
More than 19 smuggling boats, most which have carried human cargo, have been seized this year, Mack said. Most of those have been small, often
dilapidated and are usually abandoned.
Mack said she did not recall a smuggling boat of this size and type before. This is the busy season for marine smuggling due to calm, warm seas and
the fact that there are many pleasure boats in the water, Mack said.
Debbi Baker: (619) 293-1710; debbi.baker@uniontrib.comgnukid - 7-16-2008 at 02:06 PM
Drug smugglers bribing U.S. agents on Mexico border
By Robin Emmott
Tue Jul 15, 1:08 PM ET
U.S. Border Patrol agent Reynaldo Zuniga was arrested last month lugging a bag of cocaine up from the Rio Grande, one of a growing number of law
enforcement officers accused of taking bribes from drug gangs.
Former colleagues say Zuniga used to wait until agents in the south Texas town of Harlingen were distracted with paperwork, then slip down to the
river and help smuggle in drugs from Mexico.
The increasing use of bribes by Mexican drug cartels to corrupt U.S. agents comes as Washington is sending $400 million to help Mexico's army-led war
on the trafficking gangs, whose brutal murders have surged to unprecedented levels.
"Zuniga was a good agent and a hard worker. I can't understand why he would do this. We're supposed to be protecting our borders," said Border Patrol
agent Daniel Doty, a former colleague.
Data on agents convicted of graft are not made public, but the U.S. government is probing hundreds of border corruption cases where a decade ago it
saw a few dozen a year. The FBI-led Border Corruption Task Force says it is busier than ever.
"We've seen a sharp increase in investigations along the border over the past three years," said Andy Black, who oversees the San Diego task force,
near the busy border crossing of San Ysidro.
"We are talking about a minority of agents but they are a very significant threat, a weak link in efforts to secure the border."
Some put the rise in bribery down to a recent tightening of border controls and a jump in hiring new agents. Smugglers can offer hundreds of thousands
of dollars to get past the heavily policed border with drugs and immigrants -- much more than a border agent or sheriff makes in a year.
Gangs also often use attractive women as bait, setting a "honey trap" to entice officials.
"I was offered sex to let a woman across the Rio Grande, but I have a family, I turned her down," one agent told Reuters as his sniffer dog searched a
freight train for immigrants and drugs in the Texan borderlands, steamy with tropical rain.
"BAD AGENTS"
Corruption south of the border is a major hurdle to Mexican President Felipe Calderon's quest to crush drug gangs, with up to half the country's
police thought to be crooked. Spiraling drug violence has killed 1,700 people in Mexico this year.
U.S. anti-drug officials have pointed to higher street cocaine prices as proof of tighter border controls.
But the campaign is weakened by cases like that of a border agent and his brother in Texas who netted $1.5 million by letting tonnes of marijuana
through checkpoint inspection lanes from 2003 to 2005.
Trafficking drugs and people generates billions of dollars a year. Powerful gangs use crooked officials well beyond the border to open smuggling lanes
into the United States.
In one case showing the breadth of the problem, two California-based employees of Wackenhut, a contractor that transports detained illegal immigrants,
were charged last month with freeing them for $2,500 each.
Also in June, police arrested a Los Angeles attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for allegedly accepting huge bribes to issue
green cards and other papers.
"This was an amazing compromise of our system and its integrity," said Paul Layman, a special agent who oversees ICE's corruption investigations in
the western United States.
"Smugglers are willing to do anything to get people into the country, they will move anything for a dollar."
U.S. Customs inspector Richard Elizalda, arrested in 2006, was paid $70,000 to let through hundreds of immigrants after a persuasive female smuggler
he met at the San Ysidro crossing became his lover.
A sudden influx of Border Patrol agents may have worsened the problem. The number of agents along the border has jumped to more than 14,700 now from
less than 9,000 four years ago.
Agents receive intense training and ethics courses, but some officials worry about the screening process.
"Just given the increases, the odds are you'll get more bad agents," said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. Attorney for Arizona.
(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Kieran Murray)pascuale - 7-16-2008 at 03:33 PM
I start training on Monday in Artesia. Wish me luck, ill do my best to protect our borders.woody with a view - 7-16-2008 at 04:08 PM
good on ya!CaboRon - 7-16-2008 at 04:12 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by pascuale
I start training on Monday in Artesia. Wish me luck, ill do my best to protect our borders.
Good Luck !
CaboRon
Oh Dear! Oh My!
Gypsy Jan - 7-16-2008 at 05:40 PM
What will the San Diego University frat boys do for entertainment this weekend?
