When I first started this Article I thought it was about U.S. corruption in Law agencies , It did not take long to realize they are pretty much talking about El Paso .
Does it come as a surprise that the one American City that is Directly across the border from the Most Corrupt and Dangerous City in Mexico , Has More than a few corruption charges against it ?
The Border Patrol is Actually being accused of being "Infiltrated" WTF ?
EL PASO -- The change from law enforcer to lawbreaker can begin with a bottle of liquor or a bribe of breakfast and coffee.
In the worst cases, officers entrusted with protecting the border end up switching from public servants to drug smugglers' minions.
Federal officials say the number of corruption investigations involving U.S. law enforcement agencies on the border continues to rise. These include cases in the El Paso Sector, which includes the Texas counties of El Paso, Culberson and Hudspeth and all of New Mexico.
Corruption cases became apparent about the time the Department of Homeland Security carried out large-scale U.S. Border Patrol hirings in 2008. The El Paso sector has grown to about 2,700 agents.
"As the federal government has increased the number of Border Patrol agents on the ground, drug cartels are having greater difficulty smuggling drugs across the border and have had to resort to other tactics, such as bribery and infiltration," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.
Reyes worked for the Border Patrol for 26 years, holding jobs from agent to sector chief.
The Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General opened 72 criminal cases alleging corruption within the department's agencies between Oct. 1, 2008, and Sept. 30 of this year.
OIG is the lead agency in investigating cases of fraud, abuse and mismanagement.
This year brought the largest number of allegations to investigators in the El Paso office, which has a total of 129 open cases. Some of these cases, though, actually began in 2008.
The number of investigating agents has doubled from five to 10 in the last two years to try to keep pace with the rising number of corruption allegations.
"As we have increased the manpower, we have increased the workload," said Chris Sanchez, assistant special agent with the office.
One of the more recent cases involving a Department of Homeland Security staffer is that of Martha Alicia Garnica, 43. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested her Nov. 18 after raiding her home on El Paso's East Side.
She faces charges of conspiracy to import narcotics, smuggling in undocumented immigrants and bribing a public official. If convicted, a federal judge could sentence her to 10 years to life in prison
Unbelievable.
And the list goes on .
1 comment:
this is nothing short of treason IMO.
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