A former Customs and Border Protection officer who pleaded guilty to smuggling people into the U.S. and allowing what he thought was cocaine into the country has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors announced Friday.
Emanuel Isac Celedon, 37, of Laredo, Texas was convicted last year in two separate federal cases involving illegal activities at a point of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In March 2024, he pleaded guilty to four counts of bringing an undocumented migrant into the U.S. He also admitted to taking money from a cartel to allow what he thought was cocaine to cross into the U.S. from Mexico.
As a result of both cases, a judge sentenced Celedon to a total of nine years and nine months in prison, followed by four years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said Friday. He was also ordered to pay a money judgment of $17,980.
While issuing the lengthy sentence, U.S. District Judge Diana Saldana emphasized that Celedon had failed in his duty to prevent drug smuggling and illegal border crossings. She also noted his deep involvement with the cartel and suggested he sought even greater involvement.
While working as a CBP officer, Celedon shared his daily lane assignment with co-conspirators, enabling unauthorized entry without inspection or documentation — something that occurred at least nine times between September and November 2023, according to prosecutors.
He also falsified CBP database records to allow co-conspirators crossing the border from Mexico to bypass mandatory secondary inspection on at least two occasions, and sought contacts within the Cartel del Noreste to smuggle drugs and migrants in exchange for money, investigators said.
During an undercover operation in October 2023, Celedon was caught using his position as a CBP officer to let several kilograms of what he believed to be cocaine enter the U.S. in return for $6,000, prosecutors said.
At the time of his arrest, authorities seized $1,980 in cash from the cartel, which Celedon “admitted were proceeds from human smuggling.”
The case was “especially troubling given the position of trust the defendant,” U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei said in a statement. “Anybody who aids or works for the cartel is going to find themselves on the wrong end of a federal indictment.”
