A pair of border patrol agents based in Southern California are accused of taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow vehicles carrying undocumented migrants to pass unchecked through the nation’s busiest port of entry, prosecutors said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez, both of whom manned inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, are facing a series of federal charges in connection with the scheme, including conspiracy to bring in aliens for financial gain and receipt of bribes by a public official.
An investigation was launched into the duo after a group of smugglers arrested last year claimed they’d been working with the U.S. border inspectors. They alleged the agents would inform co-conspirators in Mexico which lanes they had been assigned to work, and then wave through vans carrying people without proper documentation into the United States.
Prosecutors said the suspects received thousands of dollars for each van they allowed to cross the border.
They were taken into custody last week after investigators uncovered text messages they’d exchanged with human traffickers in Mexico, in addition to unexplained cash deposits into their bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint.
One alleged smuggler’s cellphone had a screenshot of a message involving one person named “Farli USA,” who had been providing his shift times, according to court documents obtained by NBC San Diego.
Prosecutors said there’s also surveillance video of at least one instance of a vehicle stopped at a checkpoint, and while there was a driver and a passenger, only the driver was documented as having entered the country.
With News Wire Services
