Customs agent let drugs slip through

The Houston Chronicle ^ | 3/25/2006 | JAMES PINKERTON

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Ayyyy carumba!!!!

[cryptical]

authorities are trying to figure out what happened, how an agent on the front lines of the so-called "drug war" went so terribly bad.

Hard to tell what could have gone wrong, all that cash flying around...

[jazusamo]

[He faces as much as life in prison and a $4 million fine.]

Sounds fair to me if that's the sentence he gets. It'll give him time to think about all that easy money.

[oldcapecodder]

With his blatent purchases, it's amazing he went as long as he did without getting caught. Of course the union is back-peddling now to distance themselves from this scumbag.
These people need to be rotated almost constantly to prevent this type of scam.

Richard

[JSteff]

It's all because that damn Dubai Ports World deal. See it is already putting drugs on our streets.

Oh they don't run that port? Well that doesn't matter because they control the FBI, DHS, and the U.S. Navy.

Oh they don't? I thought that the way everyone was talking that they had already taken over the FBI, DHS (with Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Immigration, Customs, and ATF), and the U.S. NAVY.

Okay, never mind it is all okay then. That was a U.S. controlled Customs agent so that makes it better.... somehow... I guess.

[txzman]

He earned $55,664 a year and she did not report an income. Yet in 2003, agents said, the couple made more than $400,000 in cash purchases. They bought such items as diamond rings and a diamond-studded Rolex watch. They purchased a $240,000 used car dealership in downtown McAllen and 10 classic, big-engine "muscle cars" worth $76,800, according to government documents.

They also made cash payments toward a $529,963 home in McAllen. The luxurious house featured a swimming pool, elaborate stained-glass windows, balconies, a basement movie theater and two free-standing garages. Each room was equipped with a television.

All despite the fact that Martinez and his wife had gone through bankruptcy proceedings in 2000 and had claimed assets of only $7,850, court records show.

Duhhhhhhhhhh. And no one noticed......??

[Hank Rearden]

Hard to tell what could have gone wrong, all that cash flying around...

We've seen this before, haven't we? Prohibition = Corruption

[freepatriot32]

Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here

[ncountylee]

In an average year, the feds fire all of 400 employees for cause.

We must have the very best...NOT.

[gaspar]

Too bad an investigative reporter doesn't go after the Nogales port of entry. It is a sinkhole of PC and corruption.

[Ninian Dryhope]

Blood is thicker than water.

[winston2]

(snip)According to common sense perception, drug traffickers in Mexico have become so powerful that they have "penetrated" the protective shield of official institutions whose purpose is to fight them. Historical research in the Mexican case does not support the assumption of two separate fields: drug trafficking and its agents, on one side, and the State on the other. Moreover, since the beginning of prohibition, the illegal trade appeared related to powerful political agents in the production and trafficking regions. Cultivators and wholesale smugglers were not autonomous players; their success depended on political protection. They did not buy politicians; rather, politicians obliged them to pay a sort of "tax". If they didn’t pay, their business was over. The power was on the political side. Politicians decided who, when, where and how. Drug trafficking was supported from within the power structure. How could drug traffickers have penetrated a political structure that created and protected them, a political structure they were subordinated to? They were its creatures. The strategies of political control on drug trafficking have changed throughout the years. Before the 1940s, governors of producing and trafficking states had the power to control illegal business in their territories. After 1947, anti-drug agents and the military had direct responsibility in fighting traffickers and the possibility of being institutional mediators between traffickers and political power. Neither traffickers nor mediators were autonomous: they were both subordinated to political power. The cracking down of the ancient regime has provoked cascade effects on the different levels of the power structure pyramid. Lethal disputes among the state party political families have disrupted the mechanisms of political control over institutional mediations between traffickers and political power. Institutional mediators (police and military) and traffickers can now be more autonomous than ever and capable of playing for their own interests. A political pact for a democratic transition would help to prevent the negative effects of a collapsing system and increase the probabilities for keeping the social control, under different conditions, of drug trafficking, considering the realistic impossibility of eradicating drugs from the planet and stopping once and forever the curiosity and appetite of human beings for mind-altering substances. (snip)
http://www.illegaleconomy.com/im/us-mexico-cross-border-marijuana-traffic-1.jpg

[Know your rights]

It's all because that damn Dubai Ports World deal.

Corruptibility is cross-cultural ... support for jihad is not.

[demkicker]

I can't keep up with all the crimes this guy committed, but his higher ups kept looking the other way? It doesn't take a stink bomb to smell the corruption that obviously goes up the US Customs food chain.

[Supernatural]

I don't even know where to start on this one.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The lure of easy money...

[Drew68]

You mean to say that customs agents can be bribed with large amounts of cash to let drugs slip through? I'm shocked, I tell ya'! Who'd ever thought such a thing could happen.

Customs internal affairs officers investigated Martinez 15 times, resulting in letters of caution, oral and written reprimands, mandatory counseling, three short suspensions and two attempts to fire him permanently, according to testimony at a Feb. 22, 2005, court hearing.

Yeah, those strongly-worded letters of caution and oral reprimands are pretty effective at dissuading one from accepting huge buckets of cash.

[winston2]

The lure of easy money...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without the U.S. war a.k.a. (price support at tax payer expense) against cannabis - what would be the market price per ounce? - And would it be profitable to ship from central Mexico + pay bribes to border agents?

[Supernatural]

I remember back in the old days it was $20 per oz.

Then there was a big crack-down because of the increase in cocaine smuggling and the price went way up.

Smugglers could make so much money on cocaine that it had to be worth their while to continue to smuggle weed.

With all that money floating around, participation in smuggling by law enforcement was inevitable.

[wildbill]

When the big push for more customs agents went on several years ago I remarked that the drug smugglers weren't stupid.

This was their chance to imbed people without criminal records from their crime families into the customs service to assist in their smuggling.

Anyone who thinks all these drugs are being smuggled without some inside help doesn't appreciate the vast volume coming across. It isn't all luck.