WASHINGTON TIMES: Border Patrol told to stand down in Arizona

Bring it on!

Maybe the indigenous americans ought rise up and kick all of you illegal aliens out. You have been turning up for centuries bringing your infectious diseases, low morality and mass murder. Just because you have been there for a few hundred years doesn´t give you any rights to say who can move in.

Nope. Can´t have the Minuteman Project be seen as effective, can we?

They are effective and the cabal is being seen as desperately INEFFECTIVE. Time for the videotapes to be made and released-this is going to bite the administration is the butt-



mark my words

Too much construction at the DM Border patrol HQ. Theres a constant line of BP vehicles on 86 west of Tucson. New construction will be @5X the existing size. Constant radio bombardment for BP jobs, but nobodies getting hired.

This technically is TREASON. Could be time to stretch some necks.

[email protected]


Bitch at the person that needs to hear it most.

LOUDLY

CLEARLY


wise choices-no threats

Of course they were told to stand down.
That´s how we handle things in the U.S.A.



May 12, 2005

Drug-Smuggling Conspiracy
Among U.S. Law Enforcement Disclosed

A brazen conspiracy among U.S. law enforcement officers and soldiers to smuggle cocaine from Mexico was disclosed Thursday by the Justice Department, adding to concerns that public corruption along the border is growing.

Wearing uniforms and even driving U.S. military vehicles, 16 suspects were caught in a sting run by an FBI-led task force. Eleven entered guilty pleas Thursday in Tucson, Arizona; the other five have agreed to do so soon.

One federal inspector waved trucks he believed were carrying drugs across the border from Mexico to the United States, according to the FBI.

In another case, a group of the defendants used Army National Guard Humvees to transport 60 kilograms of cocaine from a desert landing strip to a resort hotel in Phoenix, where they received cash from an undercover FBI agent.

Justice Department officials describe the case as a "widespread bribery and extortion conspiracy" and it is one of the largest public corruption cases along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years.

The defendants "used their color of authority to prevent police stops, searches and seizures of narcotics as they drove the cocaine shipments on highways that passed through checkpoints," the Justice Department said in a statement.

The defendants pleaded guilty to transporting 560 kilograms of cocaine and accepting $222,000 in cash for their activities.

The 16 defendants are or have been employed by a variety of agencies, including the U.S. Army, the Arizona Army National Guard, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the Arizona Department of Corrections, the local police department in Nogales, Arizona, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The three-year investigation, known as Operation Lively Green, was run by the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Tucson police department.

U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton has been sounding alarms about the problem of public corruption for several years, and the latest arrests seem to confirm what he and others have been saying.

"It is a problem along the whole border," Charlton said in an interview more than a year ago. "Along the port of entries, custom officials have been paid to assist with smuggling. Some of these people don´t have the ability to say no."

In the last several years, almost every segment of the U.S. border with Mexico has had cases of law enforcement, customs and immigration officials, local police and U.S. military personnel, prosecuted for bribery, drug trafficking and other federal crimes.

In the last three years, a border patrol agent and his wife were convicted for smuggling illegal immigrants in San Diego, an immigration officer pleaded guilty to charges of helping drug dealers smuggle narcotics in Texas and two Forest Service rangers were convicted of marijuana trafficking along the Arizona border.

As the convictions have mounted, concerns that well-financed drug and smuggling organizations in Mexico could corrupt the U.S. civil service and military along the border has been growing. The FBI set up a public corruption squad in its Phoenix office in 2003. And only last year federal authorities organized a joint meeting to step up efforts to combat corruption.

One of the biggest emerging concerns is that a corrupted southern border will leave the United States more vulnerable to terrorists who could more easily pass through undetected and may even join forces with drug interests.

"It is not just the threat of drugs, but the possibility that terrorists will slip through," said Douglas C. McNabb, a criminal defense lawyer who has represented government officials charged with corruption. "We have a huge problem along the border."

Rumors about Operation Lively Green have been circulating among law enforcement officials in Arizona for years, according to one federal agent who asked not to be named.

"The big question in the field was why these guys weren´t being prosecuted," he said. "Now, it looks like they were flipped."

Justice Department spokesmen confirmed that the defendants have cooperated with the investigation, which is continuing. The defendants were appearing before Magistrate Judge Charles R. Pyle in Tucson.

Each conspiracy charge carries a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Among those pleading guilty were John M. Castillo, 30, an INS inspector, who waved through a truck that he thought was carrying 40 kilograms of cocaine on April 12, 2002. A few months later, he sold undercover FBI agents fraudulent immigration documents.

The FBI said all of the defendants escorted at least two shipments of cocaine from locations in Arizona to Phoenix and Las Vegas, among other destinations.

Seven of the 17 defendants were in the Arizona Army National Guard, according to the FBI. A spokeswoman for the Guard said the organization learned about the guilty pleas on Wednesday night and was still trying to determine how they became involved in the conspiracy.

The state´s Guard assists federal law enforcement organizations through its Arizona National Guard Joint Counter Narco Terrorism Task Force, but none of the defendants are part of the task force, said Maj. Eileen Bienz, a Guard spokeswoman.

"None of them are assigned to border functions," she added. Four of the defendants are still in the Guard.

An FBI spokeswoman said the Justice Department filed criminal informations on the defendants, which led to the guilty pleas.

They also include:
Robert L. Bakerx, 43;
David M. Bustamante, 35;
Joel P. Bustamante, 33;
Jorge A. Calzadillas, 22;
Demian F. Castillo, 33;
Mark A. Fillman, 55;
Jimmy L. Ford Jr., 29;
Guillermo German, 36;
Angel S. Hernandez, 31;
Moises Hernandez, 21;
Leslie B. Hidalgo, 24;
John F. Manje, 36;
Gladys C. Sanchez, 24;
Angel M. Soto, 41;
Phillip Varona, 22.
 



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[link to www.latimes.com]