U.S. Border Agents Bribed By Mexican Drug Cartels

127 U.S. Agents have been arrested for corruption.


Stories of corruption among American police forces are kept fairly quiet.  The last thing the government wants is for the public to think the Drug War is not only a failure but that it is undermining society.  But that is what is happening.  The corruption of American law enforcement is just the start.  It will spread, just as the gang warfare over drug territories has already spread to cities all over America.

American Society is Breaking Down  -  We are becoming Mexico 

The BBC reports that Mexican drug cartels are increasingly targeting American border guards and customs agents with bribes and sexual favours, a US security official says.

Charles Edwards of the US Department of Homeland Security told a Senate committee the cartels were using what he called systematic corruption to smuggle drugs and migrants into the US.

He said the cartels were also seeking tip-offs about police investigations.

Another official said 127 US agents had been arrested or tried since 2004.

Alan Bersin, the US customs and border protection commissioner, said Mexico's offensive against the cartels combined with the rise in the hiring of border agents in recent years has multiplied the risks of corruption.

Mr Edwards named the Zetas cartel as being involved increasingly in systematic corruption.

It came in the form of monetary bribes, sexual favours and other methods to encourage border agents to assist drug traffickers, those involved in smuggling undocumented immigrants, or to ignore their activity, he said.   -   (BBC Story)

Drug Cartels in Phoenix

The kidnapping problem has spilled over to the United States, specifically to Phoenix, Arizona. America’s fifth largest city, Phoenix has a population of 1.6 million people.  The Phoenix metro area gained the dubious distinction of America’s kidnapping capital. With its numbers right behind Mexico, Phoenix is the number two kidnapping capital of the world.

The kidnapping problem in Phoenix, however, as widely reported by various news agencies in the past year, involves victims who are either illegal aliens or connected to the drug trade. Some officials have commented that all the Phoenix kidnappings are connected to illegal immigration but that the actual numbers (359 in 2007, a 10-year high, 366 in 2008, and 302 for the first 11 months of 2009) account for just one-third of the reported kidnappings taking place in the metropolitan area. People are just not reporting all the kidnappings.



February 14, 1929.   The Saint Valentine’s Day massacre.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Only legalization ended the gang warefare. 





The situation has gotten so bad that the fear is anyone who looks like they have money is in danger of being kidnapped. According to news stories, ransoms have ranged from $30,000 to $1 million. Some have even included demands for large drug loads. An L.A. Times story in February 2009 quoted Phoenix police saying that most every victim and suspect is connected to the drug smuggling world, usually tracing back to the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Phoenix police say many come from the Sinaloan towns of Guasave, Leyva, and Los Mochis.


From Judical Watch

As if the southern border crisis wasn’t bad enough, an increasing number of Homeland Security agents guarding the area have been arrested for accepting bribes from Mexican drug cartels.

The alarming information, from two high-ranking government sources, comes just months after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured Americans that the Mexican border is “as secure as it has ever been.” Both officials testified this week at a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington D.C.

Not only is violence at record-high levels, a growing number of federal agents have teamed up with Mexican drug lords, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general and the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In the last few years 127 CBP employees have been arrested or indicted for corruption, according to testimony delivered by the agency’s commissioner, Alan Bersin.



Drug Cartel violence and corruption is spreading
into the United States

 The federal officers have been busted for taking cash and sexual favors from Mexican cartels in exchange for allowing contraband or illegal immigrants through inspection lanes. Sometimes they actually escort traffickers or leak sensitive information, according to Homeland Security IG Charles Edwards. As an example he told the senate committee that the infamous Zetas drug cartel is a leader in the “systematic corruption” of U.S. agents.

The IG pointed out that this sort of border corruption compromises homeland security because agents bribed to allow an “undocumented” alien into the U.S. may unwittingly help terrorists enter the country. “Likewise, what seems to be drug contraband could be weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical or biological weapons,” he added.

Over the years Judicial Watch has reported on the various scandals that have rocked both CPB and the U.S. Border Patrol. Just a few months ago a Border Patrol agent (Marcos Gerardo Manzano Jr.) in southern California got arrested for hiding illegal immigrants and drugs in a secret underground bunker at his home.

A few years ago a Border Patrol agent (Oscar Ortiz) who admitted smuggling 100 illegal immigrants into the country in his government vehicle turned out to be an illegal alien himself. Ortiz used a false birth certificate to get his government job then charged fellow countrymen $300 to $2,000 a pop to sneak them in through a crossing near Tecate.

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