Posted on 01/10/2005 11:32:51 AM PST by Graybeard58
NOGALES, Ariz. - The young woman in the white ski jacket hugged herself tightly, walking quickly down the ramp toward the Nogales port of entry, when a federal agent stopped her 50 feet from Mexico.
He asked if she had any money to report before leaving the United States and, according to the criminal complaint against her, Maribel Lopez Romero lied, telling the agent on Christmas Eve morning that she carried $9,000. Inside her jacket, agents found bundles of cash totaling $59,320 she was carrying to her house in Mexico for someone else, the complaint states.
The 24-year-old Mexican woman was arrested and charged with failing to report and transporting money, each charge carrying a maximum five years in prison. Her status is not known. She joins a large number of people arrested in Nogales trying to leave the United States with thousands of dollars in cash.
More than $2.6M seized
Long a favored incoming route for smuggling drugs and people, Southern Arizona is also popular for smuggling millions of dollars in cash south to Mexico, U.S. federal court records show.
Between Oct. 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2004, more than $2.6 million was seized as people tried to sneak the cash through the Nogales ports of entry, said Robert Fencel, supervisor for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection 11-member outbound inspection team at the port in downtown Nogales. Statewide, $12 million was seized in undeclared outgoing cash, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rick Pauza. Nobody knows how much got through.
The outbound inspection team works the southbound lanes of the port, sizing up individuals in the moving crowd and using a currency-sniffing dog, a black Labrador named Angus, to randomly inspect vehicles and pedestrians for money. Under U.S. law, people carrying more than $10,000 have to declare the money before leaving the United States. Those who do not declare it face charges of illegal transport of money or cash-smuggling charges. They can also lose the cash if they can't prove it's from a legitimate source.
People with more than $10,000 must fill out a customs declaration form. There are no duties or taxes to pay, but they are asked about the source of the money.
Officials are not always able to ascertain the source of the money or its final destination. Sometimes people are accused of carrying cash as drug-money couriers. Other times, people say they panicked and lied about how much they were carrying because they were afraid the money would be taken away by corrupt agents or they would be charged heavy taxes.
This creates a quandary, since along with drug money couriers, U.S. officials are also arresting Mexican nationals carrying home remittances - money they earn here and send home to Mexico - which the country's central bank, Banco de México, estimates at more than $15 billion in 2004.
While in some cases border crossers can prove they earned the money legitimately, many more are not able to say why they were carrying wads of cash stashed in their clothing or the glove compartments of their cars, or hidden inside bicycle tires.
The outbound team is the "last chance" to nab somebody trying to sneak money out of the U.S., Fencel said, dryly observing that the same techniques to bring drugs north work just as well to take the resulting money south.
Cash in bicycle tires
Take the case of Hugo Humberto Barriga Acevedo, 35, who faced federal felony transportation and cash-smuggling charges after agents at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales said they found $40,936 stashed inside the tires of the child's bicycle he carried in his car last April.
Barriga Acevedo skipped out on his hearing in November and his whereabouts are unknown, said Stephen G. Ralls, the Tucson attorney who defended him. Under forfeiture rules, the same rules apply to southbound smuggling as they do to northbound - the U.S. government kept the money and Barriga Acevedo's 1999 Lexus, records show.
"It's intended to deter any kind of illegal trafficking by going straight towards the pocketbook," Ralls said. "The end result is the U.S. government makes a profit off of it."
Jesus Maria Gracia Salas was arrested in November 2003 carrying $20,420 when an inspector noticed he was walking with his hands in front of his crotch, his criminal complaint shows. He feared having to pay duties on the money and hid the money there. The Tucson roofer was sentenced to time served and two years probation.
A Homeland Security forfeiture officer at the port initially decides whether to exact a 5 or 10 percent civil fine on the spot or can arrest the person, seize the money and push for prosecution, said Jose Agostini, chief inspector at the Nogales downtown port of entry.
Those facing prosecution are decided on a case-by-case basis, usually when the person caught can't prove where the money came from, said Lynnette Kimmins, criminal division chief for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tucson.
Sometimes people proved they were simply carrying the proceeds from selling a house or a car and taking the money home to Mexico, Kimmins said.
Others are afraid to declare the money for fear of prosecution if they weren't in the United States legally, Ralls said.
"A lot of times, people will pool their money together and designate one person to take it to their families in Mexico," Ralls said.
"They get nervous," said Customs and Border Protection officer Gerardo Ozorio-Quiroz after stopping a Mexican woman with $3,000 in her pocket. She couldn't satisfactorily explain to the outbound inspection team where the money came from or where it was going but had to be released because she didn't carry more than the proscribed $10,000.
"When you ask, they start to stutter. They say they were in a hotel in Tucson. So you ask them, 'Oh yeah, which room did you stay in?' and they don't know. They should. Everybody knows what hotel room they stayed in. They're lying," Ozorio-Quiroz said.
Last fiscal year, 42 cases were taken up by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona against people trying to smuggle individual amounts of tens of thousands of dollars. In fiscal year 2003, 36 cases were prosecuted.
Pattern of travel
In Tucson, Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized $1 million in smuggled money coming into Tucson International Airport last fiscal year, said Anthony J. Coulson, assistant special agent in charge for the DEA's Tucson District office.
Shortly after Donell Benjamin Davis landed at the Tucson airport last June, he was approached by DEA agents who had received a tip he was coming, stopped him and asked him his name, his pre-sentence report filed in Pima County Superior Court showed.
He used a one-way ticket from New Jersey, carried no luggage and a tipster told agents he was working as a drug-money courier, reads the report.
Inside a shampoo bottle he carried on him was $45,000 he brought to Tucson after he was approached "by a dude" in a New Jersey bar, Davis told the agents. He was to be paid $1,500. Charged with second-degree money laundering, Davis was sentenced to six months in jail.
"We know a lot of these people are simply taking their earnings back to their families," said supervisor Fencel. "But you see someone with a bundle of money, it makes you stop and think."
Will someone please explain to my WHY it is illegal to take cash OUT of the US.<<
I think to stop money from getting to drug lords or terrorists groups.
It's not illegal to take cash out of the U.S. It IS illegal to take more than $10,000 out without being able to prove you acquired it legally.
For that matter, if you take more than $10,000 in cash out of your own bank account, the bank notifies law enforcement. The vast majority of the time, you're buying a car or a house or something like that. But the record is created in case a reason comes up to question you about it later. You may be paying a contractor who's seeking to avoid paying payroll or income taxes.
ping
Good question. I have no idea. Perhaps you should ask a tax attorney or accountant.
It's not illegal, you just have to report it and explain the source.
Perhaps the illegitimacy of such siezures should lead one to question the legitimacy of other aspects of our government, and treat its agents like the occupiers they are.
99% of the unreported money going south is drug money. It's all about hurting the illegal drug trade.
In the example you cite, you have bank statements showing reasonable deposits over 15 years. Don't you?
Over 15 years?!? Carrying them with me on a trip!?!?
Your kidding right?
Paycheck stubs, account statements, notarized statement from a gift giver, etc.
If you were going to carry over $10,000 of cash with you and cross the border, you'd best have an explanation.
this is the form:
http://www.fincen.gov/fin105_cmir.pdf
Glad to see a crackdown. Western Union and a host of money wire services are finally getting some heat from the Feds for anabling the financing of illegal immigration.
Once money wires are scrutinized and regulated, we will see more attempted cash smuggling across borders.
These $$$ are substantially used for financing more bands of illegal border crossings and for drugs.
Believe it or not, the WOT is largely a financial war.
My only misgiving is that the Feds don't do more to clamp down on what amounts to American $$$ financing illegal immigration and terror.
If it's foreigners they're doing this to --- I don't see a problem. If Mexicans don't like it then they can take their drugs elsewhere to sell.
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