A18 From Page One
EZ SU
KLMNO
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010 Woman’s aid to cartel reveals corruption on U.S. side of border border from A1
former employer, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to federal investigators. Garnica’s stiff sentence represented a rare victory in the struggle to root out tainted government employees. Homeland Security statistics
suggest the rush to fill thousands of border enforcement jobs has translated into lower hiring stan- dards. Barely 15 percent of Cus- toms and Border Protection ap- plicants undergo polygraph tests and of those, 60 percent were rejected by the agency because they failed the polygraph or were not qualified for the job, said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who over- sees a Senate subcommittee on homeland security. The number of CBP corruption
investigations opened by the in- spector general climbed from 245 in2006tomorethan770this year. Corruption cases at its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rose from 66tomorethan220overthesame period. The vast majority of cor- ruption cases involve illegal traf- ficking of drugs, guns, weapons and cash across the Southwest border. “Wehaveinourcountrytodaya
big presence of the Mexican car- tels,” Pryor said. “With about 50 percent of the nation’s metham- phetamine and marijuana com- ing throughMexico and about 90 percent of the cocaine, there is a huge financial incentive for car- tels to try to corrupt our people.” CBP Commissioner Alan D.
Bersin said the rise in investiga- tions might simply correspond to the rapid growth in personnel. Corruption of “customs offi-
cials all over the world has been a perennial problem of border in- spection and border enforce- ment,” he said in an interview. “What we haven’t seen is a vast conspiracy in the workforce.” Still, Frost said, it takes only a
handful of dirty government workers on the inside to make millions for the cartels. “It would be naive to think a
$1 billion smuggling industry would allow itself to be depen- dent on one or two corrupt em- ployees, or if you eliminate that corrupt employee that theywon’t try to corrupt someone else,” he said.
‘An air about her’ There was always something
about Martha Garnica that just didn’t feel right. As early as 1997, colleagues
had suspicions about the asser- tive young mother of two who had worked seven years as an El Paso cop before joining the U.S. Customs Service. (Her division became part of CBP in 2003.) Garnica had a pattern of filing
questionable workplace injury claimsandsocialized inbarspop- ular among drug dealers. “There was an air about her
that made her suspect,” said Ed Abud, an internal affairs officer at CBP El Paso who was involved in the investigation. Garnica’s adult daughter and
attorney refused interview re- quests. In court, her attorney pleaded for leniency and counsel- ing, saying Garnica had been the victim of abuse by a family mem- ber and a boyfriend. Abudsaid henowbelieves Gar-
nica transferred to the federal agency with an eye toward crimi- nal smuggling activities. “She came on board probably
withthemainpurposeof trying to exploit the border for herself,” he said recently. “She figured, ‘What’s in it forme?’ ” In November 1997, authorities
seized nearly 100 pounds of mari- juana on the Bridge of the Ameri- cas into El Paso. An informant fingered Garnica as part of the conspiracy, according to two in- vestigators. The FBI opened a case, but it went nowhere. InMarch 2005, shecameunder
scrutiny again. That week, a van packed with 531 pounds of mari- juana tried to enter the United States through the lane Garnica was staffing. She was not originally sched-
uled to work the lane that day, but “the duty roster had been tam- pered with,” said James Smith, head of the inspector general’s investigative unit in El Paso. As the van neared Garnica in
the inspection booth, drug-sniff- ing dogs detected the marijuana and agents arrested the driver. Others on the scene reported
that Garnica looked shaken and left for the day, Smith said. But despite the mounting suspicions, authorities lacked the evidence to suspend or charge Garnica. “We kept hitting dead ends,”
Smith said. Four years passed before they
got their big break. In the spring of 2009, a CBP employee contact- ed Smith’s office. Garnica, he said, was overly friendly; he suspected shewastrying to lurehiminto the smuggling business.
COURTESY OF THE FBI
Martha Garnica lived in a spacious house with a built-in pool, owned twoHummers and vacationed in Europe—a lifestyle funded by theMexican drug cartel she helped gain access across the border.
“The amount of money available to corrupt employees is staggering.” —Thomas Frost, an assistant inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security
Themanwastheperfect target,
right out of the Cold War-era espionage handbook. He was re- cently divorced, with a child heading to college and a modest government salary.He was strug- gling to pay his bills. “It’snodifferentfromspyagen-
cies,” Smith said. “They look for weaknesses. Sex is a biggie. Alco- hol, drug abuse, financial woes.” The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because officials say his life is in danger, agreed to work undercover. His code name would be Angel.
The recruitment It began subtly with text mes-
sages, then drinks in a bar. They would talk about the weather and gripe about work, intermingling Spanish and English as so many people along the border do. Within a few months, they
were meeting for dinner. Garnica always picked up the tab and Angel always wore a wire, their taped conversations and text messages sent directly to Smith and his team in the inspector general’s office. “Garnica was becoming his
best friend,” Smith said. “Good recruiters don’t just jump into it. They chipthroughthe wall.That’s what she was doing.” On Aug. 1, 2009, Garnica invit-
ed Angel to Jaguar’s, a strip club in east El Paso, to meet a man she described as a drug trafficker. She and her boyfriend, Carlos Ramir- ez-Rosalez, arrived in aHummer, according to court records. The groupmet in a VIP lounge,
where Hugo Alberto Flores Col- menero told Angel he could sup- ply him with money and a weap- on, specificallyaGlocksemi-auto-
SOURCE: Staff reports Arturo Leal Rozales
Illegally passed through a border station monitored by “Angel,” assisted Garnica’s smuggling ring.
SENTENCED to two years in federal prison for drug importation.
matic pistol. They exchanged phone numbers. Garnica offered to pay for a
stripper for Angel; he de- murred, saying he had a new girlfriend. “There’s plenty of fish in the
sea,” Garnica replied, according to the tape recording. Angel left Jaguar’s around 11
p.m. At 2 a.m., Flores Colmene- ro left him a voice message. In a stroke of luck for investigators, instead of hanging up, Flores Colmenero switched to a call on another line—all of it recorded by the inspector general’s team. “I’ve met with el cuatro,” or
“the fourth,” he said, referring to Angel. He called Garnica “la original.” It was a disturbing revela-
tion. “We take that to mean that
there are two or three other people that Garnica has brought into the organization,” said Juanita Fielden, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case. A fewdays later, over dinner at
COURTESY OF U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT
Martha Garnica, aU.S. Customs and Border Protection worker, devised secret codes, passed stacks of cash through car windows and sketched out a map for smugglers to safely haul drugs and undocumented workers across theU.S.-Mexico border. She was arrested inNovember 2009.
La Estrella’s reach
Until 2009, Martha Garnica, a veteran law enforcement officer and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, coordinated drug and human trafficking operations through border stations of El Paso. Known as “La Estrella” — the star — to the Ciudad Juarez-based crime syndicate La Linea, Garnica unwittingly recruited another CBP agent working undercover for law enforcement, code-named “Angel.” Some of Garnica’s co-conspirators:
Martha Garnica CBP agent
SENTENCED to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling, human trafficking and bribery.
Half-brother of Garnica’s boyfriend
Garnica’s nephew
Garnica’s boyfriend
Drug trafficker conspiring
with Garnica Half brothers
Arranged smuggling operations
Carlos Ramirez-Rosalez
Helped arrange meetings between Hugo Colmenero and “Angel.”
SENTENCED to 63 months for bribery and conspiracy to import marijuana.
Hugo Alberto Flores Colmenero
Gave “Angel” money for drug smuggling operations.
SLAIN in Juarez, Mexico, February 2010.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, GRAPHIC BY THE WASHINGTON POST Edgar “Ely” Meraz
Smuggled drugs for Garnica via a border station staffed by “Angel.”
SENTENCED to two years for importing marijuana into the United States.
the restaurant LaMar, Flores Col- menero gave Angel $500 in cash. They brainstormed about how best to smuggle “motita”—mari- juana — into the States. At the time, Angel was working the “car- go” lanes designated for large ve- hicles.They discussed using a van or renting a truck and debated ways to camouflage the drugs, perhaps buried deep in a pallet of tiles or a load of televisions. On Aug. 19, one of Flores Col-
menero’s brothers was killed in a shootout at the Seven&Seven bar in Juarez. The next time Angel saw Garnica, she explained that Flores Colmenero had gone into hiding. Before they parted, she handed him $200. In late September 2009, after
four months of secret meetings and text messages, free drinks andsmall bribes,Garnicadecided to test Angel. Until then they had onlytalkedaboutdirtydeals.Now she wanted action. She gave Angel a minor task:
sign a form claiming the injury she suffered playing volleyball ac- tually occurred at work. He did what he was told. Confidentthatshe’dreeledhim
in, she asked for something more serious. She wanted him to re- quest a change in hisworkassign- ment: Move to the Ysleta Port of Entry, the smallest of the three El Paso border stations, and switch to the midnight shift when traffic is the lightest. Investigators say smugglers prefer off-peak hours to ensure they can steer into the lane of a friendly inspector with- out being blocked by clogged traf- fic.
Forinvestigators,eachmeeting
and message provided insight into the methods and mind-set of the cartels. “We were able to see the entire
recruitment process play out through Angel,” Smith said. “It starts with small probes. If you’re willing to do that, it escalates.” New recruits get tested, and
with each test they pass it be- comes more difficult for them to refuse, he said. For the next few weeks, Angel
met often with Garnica and Ramirez-Rosalez, discussing money, vehicles and a plan to smuggle a friend into the country. The person would ride in a white Volkswagen Beetle with a compa- ny logo on the doors. In the predawn darkness of
Sunday, Oct. 11, the vehicle ap- proached the Ysleta border cross- ing station and steered into An- gel’s inspection lane. Inside were two of Ramirez-Rosalez’s broth- ers, both undocumented Mexi- cans who would eventually be arrested as part of Garnica’s smuggling ring. At the time, An- gel made a show of checking the driver’s identification, then waved the Volkswagen through. Investigators followed the car straight to Garnica’s house. “We couldn’t believe it,” said
one of the agents. At 7 a.m., Garnica sent Angel a
text message: “Prueba de fuego. Superada.” Trial by fire. Passed. The following afternoon, An-
gel, GarnicaandRamirez-Rosalez met in a McDonald’s parking lot. From the passenger-side window of one of her Hummers, Garnica handed Angel a pile of $20 bills wrapped in a piece of paper. “It’s 500,” she said.
Undercover risks Angel was suffering the strains
of hisowndouble life: undercover agent to a tight circle of investiga- tors, dirty employee to many of his co-workers. Investigators worried about his safety and the psychological
Investigations An increasing number of U.S. customs and immigration employees working inside the U.S. border have faced corruption probes.
Corruption investigations of employees opened:
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
245 66
’06 228
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
’07 ’08 *Projected, year ending Sept. 30
SOURCES: Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General
THE WASHINGTON POST
effects of “living a lie,” as Smith put it. “I was nervous from Day One,”
Angel said in an interview after Garnica was sentenced. “I was always afraid her associates would get on to me.” As the undercover operation continued, the inspectorgeneral’s office pored over Garnica’s phone recordsandfinances.Shehadtwo homes, two Hummers, a Cadillac and a truck. Her extended family took cruises, traveled to Europe and decorated one house with ostentatious statues and a foun- tain—signs she was living above her government salary. In several instances, Garnica’s
number turned up in the cell- phones of convicted drug traffick- ers and money launderers. Vehi- cles used in other smuggling cas- es appeared at her homes, accord- ing to surveillance information. Onthe nightbeforeHalloween,
Garnica summoned Angel to the Agave bar. They had been talking for days about a big shipment — two large vehicles. The payoff would be several thousand dol- lars.
Angel raced to meet Garnica;
he had less than an hour before his shift began. He had trouble finding the bar, he said later, and when he spotted it, a pair of beefy men were guarding the door. “That made me uncomfortable,” he said. “I felt like everybody in the bar
looked me up and down when I walked in,” he said later. As he scanned the room, Garni-
ca pulled him aside to a table. She handed him a Nextel walkie-talk- ie-style phone and a cocktail nap- kin with 12 ordinary phrases writ- ten in Spanish. Each correspond- ed to a lane at the port. “You have to memorize this,”
she said. Angel hurried out of the bar to change his clothes and report for work. Around 1 a.m., Angel pushed
the button on the phone and said simply: “Esta haciendo mucho frio”—it’s very cold out. The code words meant he was working Lane 10. But Garnica, who investigators
spotted watching the station in one of her Hummers, messaged back: “Hay mucha de la fea.” The slangy phrase translates roughly: “There’s a lot of ugliness”—crimi- nal code warning of the presence of Mexican military or law en- forcement. They aborted the de- livery. A week later, Angel and Garni-
ca repeated the routine, Angel again remarking on the cold weather to direct smugglers to Lane 10. He’d been given $3,500 in advance and told to look for a red pickup truck. When the truck reached Angel
in the booth,herecognized Garni- ca’s nephewin the passenger seat and one of Ramirez-Rosalez’s brothers behind the wheel. “I acted like it was a normal
inspection,” he recalled. “I stalled for a few minutes to make it look like I was checking the vehicle.” Then he waved the pair through. Just up the road, El Paso police
stopped the truck, loaded with morethan160poundsofmarijua- na, and arrested the pair. Two days later, a federal grand jury meeting in secret indicted Garni- ca and her co-conspirators. Garnica, unaware of the indict-
ments or Angel’s role in the sting, prepared to bring across another load. The next shipment was set for the night ofNov. 17. At the last minute, investigators told Angel to call it off. “We’d already indicted Garnica
and we didn’t want to take any more risks,” Smith said. The next day, La Estrella was
behind bars.
connollyc@washpost.com
News researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
For expanded coverage, including a photo gallery and court documents, go to
washingtonpost.com/nation. Thomas Frost, an assistant inspector general for investigations with the Department of Homeland Security, will answer questions online Monday at 11 a.m.
’09 ’10* 775
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166