Free Republic

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection watch commander at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport has admitted running an illegal gun operation, authorities said. Wei Xu, 56, of Santa Fe Springs, was arrested Feb. 5 after an investigation involving undercover officers to whom Xu sold three guns out of the trunk of his car, including an “off-roster” pistol, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. He has been on unpaid administrative leave since his arrest and will be fired, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. In court Wednesday, Xu pleaded guilty to illegally selling guns on the...

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer assigned to the San Luis, Ariz., port of entry and four others face various immigrant smuggling charges in a 22-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. The officer, Jose Carmelo Magana of Yuma, is accused of accepting bribes from four others to allow illegal immigrants to be smuggled through the port of entry from October 2007 through May of this year. Also charged are Ana Calderon, 28, of San Luis, Ariz., and four residents of neighboring San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., identified in the indictment as Jesus Gastelum-Rodriguez, 41, Guadalupe Milan de...

BROWNSVILLECustoms Agent Faked Immigration Document, LiedJul 25, 2005, 4:33 PM A Customs and Border Protection supervisor Monday admitted he lied about preparing and authorizing a fake immigration form.Fifty-two-year-old Natalio Ortega pleaded guilty in Brownsville to knowingly making a materially false statement to investigating agents.The feds say Ortega prepared and issued an I-94 form, which indicates legal immigration status, to a non-citizen.He accompanied the illegal immigrant with the document to the Sarita checkpoint in October of 2002 -- where agents became suspicious.Ortega in 2003 admitted lying about having knowledge of the form to investigating agents.He was arrested May second and has been free on...

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told the 9/11 Commission Thursday morning that it was an alert Customs agent - and not the Clinton adminsitration "shaking the trees" for intelligence on al Qaeda - who deserves credit for foiling the December 1999 al Qaeda plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. "It's questionable to me . . . that somehow shaking the trees was what broke up the Millennium [Plot]," Rice told the 9/11 probers, referring to claims by Clinton terrorism czar Richard Clarke that White House alerts had the nation's security apparatus on the lookout for trouble. In fact, said...