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Newsbrief:
This
Week's
Cop
Corruption
Story
11/22/02
This week's honors go not
to an individual, but to a place: the US Customs port of entry at San Luis,
AZ. The port made the news this week when Lisa Stubbs, the top Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) official at San Luis was arrested on bribery
charges after FBI agents watched her trade immigration documents to a Mexican
national in exchange for vials of a powerful prescription drug.
But Stubbs is only the latest
in a long string of Customs and INS officers at San Luis to go down on
corruption charges. At least six have been sent to prison in the
last five years, during which time the port of entry has been the focus
of 16 corruption investigations. According to the Arizona Republic,
there have been nearly a hundred such investigations into corruption along
the border in the state since 1998.
The others from San Luis:
-
Last month, inspector Allen
J. Mouzon was sentenced to 30 months in prison for allowing drugs through
the port of entry with the help of a San Luis drug trafficker. An
informant testified that he paid Mourzon more than $72,000 over a two-year
period.
-
In February, former Customs
inspector Richard Talamante, 38, got 21 months in prison for smuggling
illegal immigrants across the border. FBI agents testified that Talamante
and his wife, Christina, charged $1,300 per person to shuttle immigrants
on at least 10 occasions.
-
In January, another Customs
inspector, Manuel E. Silva, got 34 months in prison in another immigrant
smuggling scheme. Investigators testified that he also let drug smugglers
through.
-
Gustavo Ramirez, a former immigration
inspector, is in federal prison for allowing three cars carrying 583 pounds
of marijuana across the border in November 2000. He worked for a
drug cartel out of Mexicali, Mexico, according to court records.
It looks like business as usual
in the drug war on the border.
-- END --
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Issue #264, 11/22/02
DRCNet Needs Your Help! | Editorial: It's Not About Public Safety | Drug Czar, Prohibition Establishment Seek "Zero Tolerance" for "Drugged Driving" -- Sober Marijuana Users in the Crosshairs | DC Treatment Initiative Clears Legal, Bureaucratic Hurdles, More Funding and Implementation Battles Loom | Medical Marijuana in New York: As the Marijuana Reform Party Licks Its Wounds, MPP Funds New Legislative Effort | Newsbrief: This Week's Cop Corruption Story | Newsbrief: HEA Resolution on the Move on Campuses | Newsbrief: With Milwaukee Drug War Running on Overdrive, Drug Court Judge Begins to Wonder | Newsbrief: Oklahoma Prisons Gobble Up More Cash | Newsbrief: Ambitious US Attorney in Boston Orders Increased Drug Penalties | Newsbrief: Arkansas Drug Czar Resigns After DWI Bust | Newsbrief: Could It Possibly Be TRUE Department -- New African High? | Newsbrief: California Town Won't Report Medical Marijuana Cases to DEA 264/antimarijuanaresearch Newsbrief: NORML Gives Heads Up on Anti-Marijuana Research Results to Be Published Next Week | Green Aid Establishes Legal Defense Fund for Ed Rosenthal | Media Scan: Doonesbury, Forbes in Slate, OC Register, Ed Forchion in DrugWar.com, Youth Today, Nando Times, CCLE Salvia, Heroin Times, Pot TV on John Walters, ONDCP | Action Alerts: Rave Bill, Medical Marijuana, Higher Education Act Drug Provision, Tulia, Salvia Divinorum | The Reformer's Calendar
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