Like the majority of truckers caught hauling contraband, American trucker Wayne West of Balch Springs Texas was doing it to make a few extra bucks
LAREDO — Border agents found 48 illegal immigrants in the back of a tractor trailer during a routine stop at a checkpoint in south Texas.
The trailer was refrigerated, according to the driver’s attorney, and all of those in the trailer declined medical treatment, immigration officials said.
The driver, Wayne West of Balch Springs, was charged with transporting illegal immigrants, according to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Laredo. He’s scheduled for a detention hearing on Friday.
His attorney, Russell Jordan, said he couldn’t say much about the case because the investigation is still being done, but he noted that the trailer was refrigerated and no one was injured.
An inspection dog alerted border agents to the presence of people or drugs in the trailer during the stop, authorities said.
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In the 1990s, the Border Patrol worked closely with Grupo Beta, an elite Mexican police unit. After a promising start, the unit faltered under allegations of wrongdoing and functions today as an unarmed humanitarian agency.
In a politically sensitive operation at the Arizona- Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police officers are training together, sharing intelligence and coordinating patrols for the first time.
The goal of the historic partnership: a systematic joint attack on northbound flows of drugs and migrants, and southbound shipments of guns and cash. It is part of a major, unannounced crackdown started in recent months involving hundreds of U.S. and Mexican officers in the border’s busiest smuggling corridor.
The initiative appears likely to expand. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna will sign a declaration Thursday in Mexico City agreeing to replicate the experiment. Eventually, officials say, joint operations borderwide could lead to the creation of a Mexican force serving as a counterpart to the Border Patrol — an agency once regarded with nationalistic aversion in Mexico.
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US-Canada border crossing at Blaine Washington
Blaine, Wash. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a 43-year-old Surrey, British Columbia, man on October 10 for allegedly attempting to export 192 pounds of cocaine, worth more than $3 million.
Sukhvinder Shoker, a Canadian citizen, was originally en route to Canada driving a commercial shipment of household goods when he was encountered by CBP officers of the Blaine Anti-Terrorism Contraband Enforcement Team working in concert with agents of the Border Enforcement Security Task Force at the Pacific Highway port of entry. A narcotic detector dog named “Mac” was used to search the truck and trailer and gave a positive alert to the presence of a narcotic odor.
During a detailed inspection of the trailer officers discovered a secret compartment concealing 24 cardboard boxes which contained a total of 76 bricks of an unknown substance which field tested positive for cocaine.
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CBP agents with one of the vans involved in the border incident at San Ysdiro POE
MEXICO CITY – The three Mexicans who were injured when U.S. federal agents opened fire on several vehicles to prevent them from entering the United States illegally are out of danger and have received consular protection, the Foreign Relations Secretariat said.
“The Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego is carrying out actions to protect the Mexicans who were affected by the incident” Tuesday afternoon at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the secretariat said in a statement.
The border crossing, which links San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, was shut down around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday after the U.S. agents opened fire on three vans believed to be carrying illegal immigrants that tried to evade inspection.
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Officers from Tijuana PD and Federal Police gather on Mexican side of the US-Mexico border after arresting a 17 yo juvenile who fled back into Mexico after the US Border Patrols murderous attempt to stop three vans of human smugglers
Three Mexican men were arrested on federal human-trafficking charges on Wednesday, and 75 Mexicans were detained as illegal immigrants, after three vans in which they were riding tried to run through the border station at San Diego on Tuesday afternoon, federal immigration and San Diego police officials said.
CBP officers FIRED ACROSS NINE LANES OF TRAFFIC in an attempt to stop the vans at one of the United States busiest land crossing borders that sees and average of 40,000 vehicles a day
Two of the people in the van were injured, one critically and one with non life threatening injuries and were taken to area hospitals.
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A van stuffed front to back with nearly 6,000 pounds of marijuana ran out of gas as it headed toward the Paso Del Norte border crossing and an inspection lane manned by Margarita Crispin, who was sentenced in April 2008 to 20 years in federal prison for helping drug traffickers. PHOTO: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, EL PASO
On July 1st, MTO reported on the arrest of Customs and Border Protection officer Margarita Crispin of El Paso and followed up on the story on April 21, 2008 when she entered a guilty plea to the charges against her.
Andrew Becker placed this follow up in Mother Jones titled “Will Corruption Cross the Line?”
The rumors about Margarita Crispin started soon after her first day as a customs officer in El Paso, Texas. In March 2003, Crispin started working the line at the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juárez. Nearly one-fifth of all drugs seized coming across the border enter through the El Paso-Juárez area, and the region is viciously contested by Mexican cartels. So when Crispin waved off the dogs that sniff out drugs in the long line of cars waiting to enter the United States, saying she didn’t like them around her, it raised a few eyebrows.
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Trucking related enforcement actions by the CBP.
*This overview is compiled from incidents reported to the Office of Border Patrol and is not intended to reflect all Border Patrol enforcement actions. Most arrests and seizures fail to meet the requirements for mandatory reporting to the Office of Border Patrol.
Reported on July 30, 2009
El Centro Sector – Border Patrol agents arrested two nationals of Mexico, 35 illegal aliens from Mexico, and seized two 1999 tractor-trailers near Brawley, California. A Border Patrol canine alerted to both vehicles, and agents subsequently discovered 26 subjects locked inside one trailer and nine additional subjects concealed in the cab of the second tractor.
Reported on August 5, 2009
Laredo Sector – Border Patrol agents seized 1,279 pounds of marijuana valued at $1,018,560, a 2000 International tractor-trailer, and arrested a USC at the traffic checkpoint near Laredo, Texas. The subject presented himself for inspection and a Border Patrol canine alerted to the trailer. A search revealed 77 bundles of marijuana within the cargo.
Rio Grande Valley Sector – Border Patrol agents seized 1,254 pounds of marijuana valued at $1,003,520, a 1996 Freightliner tractor-trailer, and arrested a USC at the traffic checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas. A Border Patrol canine alerted to the trailer and agents discovered the marijuana concealed in a false wall compartment in the trailer.
Further proof that the majority of drugs seized are being smuggled inland by American truckers.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry has been indicted in San Antonio for trying to smuggle marijuana and cocaine through a Border Patrol checkpoint north of Del Rio.
Alex Moses Jr., 28, was indicted Wednesday on one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it and with one count of importation of cocaine.
According to a probable cause affidavit on file in the U.S. District Clerk’s Office here, Moses was arrested at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on U.S. Highway 277 about 30 miles north of Del Rio on Sunday, Sept. 28.
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