BLOG: Politics Trumps Law and Order in Texas. FBI Ignores Own Confidential Sources
Posted on September 19, 2011 at 1:37 PM EST
By Brenda J. Elliott
It took Google 0.22 seconds to locate 62,000 results for a generic search for “border corruption” and the same amount of time to find 22,100 results when the word Texas was added.
An August 2009 investigation by AP’s Christopher Sherman and Martha Mendoza found U.S. law enforcement officers working the border were “being charged with criminal corruption in numbers not seen before, as drug and immigrant smugglers use money and sometimes sex to buy protection, and internal investigators crack down.”
Between 2007, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon “declared war” on the drug cartels, and the time of the AP report there were “corruption-related convictions against more than 80 enforcement officials at all levels — federal, state and local.”
While U.S. officials pointed to “Mexico’s rampantly corrupt cops and broken judicial system,… Calderon told the AP this isn’t just a Mexican problem.”
“To get drugs into the United States the one you need to corrupt is the American authority, the American customs, the American police — not the Mexican. And that’s a subject, by the way, which hasn’t been addressed with sincerity,” the Mexican president said. “I’m waging my battle against corruption among Mexican authorities and we’re risking everything to clean our house, but I think there also needs to be a good cleaning on the other side of the border.”
Fastforward to September 2011, where we have an egregious example of border corruption — which is being ignored by both the FBI and other members of U.S. law enforcement.
Greg Gonzales, a retired Doña Ana County sheriff’s deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a rancher and former New Mexico state livestock investigator, “allege that they cannot get anyone to investigate allegations that the Mexican drug cartels have corrupted U.S. law officers and politicians in the El Paso border region,” Diana Washington Valdez writes today at the El Paso Times:
[Gonzales and Dutton told Valez] that instead of arrests and prosecutions of suspects, their whistle-blowing activities have resulted only in threats and retaliation against themselves.
“I lost my job for a security company at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces because I would not keep my mouth shut, and someone threatened me by holding a knife to my throat,” Gonzales said.
Dutton, a rancher in Southern New Mexico, said an election official stopped by his ranch to ask him what was it going to take for him to retract his allegations concerning the official. …
Both men were confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with investigations over an 18-month period.
Gonzales and Dutton allege that the FBI dropped them after “big names” on the U.S. side of the border began to surface in the drug investigations.
FBI Special Agent Michael Martinez said that the FBI cannot comment on its former or current relationships with confidential sources.
Dutton said an FBI official who used to be in El Paso sent a memo to other law enforcement agencies in the area to dissuade them from talking to him and Gonzales or having anything to do with them.
Gonzales and Dutton said both or either one of them helped with federal investigations that were successful, including the arrest of Special FBI Agent John Shipley. Shipley was convicted of weapons-related charges after a weapon he sold someone turned up in Chihuahua state at a scene where a firefight took place between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers.
However, they said, they are concerned that other serious allegations have not found their way to court.
Gonzales and Dutton told Valdez drug cartels “have managed to obtain computer access codes to U.S. surveillance systems that let them see where and when Border Patrol agents are monitoring the border” and “alleged that drug cartels have given big donations to politicians, which are unreported, to influence appointments of key law enforcement officers.
“Some of these allegations were contained in a letter that Dutton provided to Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for president in the 2012 election.”
Perry’s office acknowledged having received the letter. Josh Havens, the Texas governor’s office spokesman, told Valdez last Friday, “Our office received the letter and referred it to the appropriate agency, which was the Department of Public Safety.”
Valdez continues:
Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety and a former FBI agent from El Paso, said last Friday that he was interested in talking to Dutton. Then, about a half-hour later, McCraw said that Dutton had no credibility. …
“We looked into it and there was nothing there,” McCraw said.
Dutton said in response, “How can they say there was nothing when they didn’t even look at what I have?”
Dutton said he has videos, telephone records, and other documents gathered over the 18 months he worked with the FBI.
“The DPS never asked to see any of it,” Dutton said.
But, as Valdez reports, the situation is even worse. Politics obviously trumps law and order in Texas:
During his work with the FBI, Dutton said the FBI asked him to accept drug shipments from Mexico through his ranching company.
“The drugs were concealed in horse saddles, and we started getting a lot of them,” Dutton said. “But the FBI kept putting me off when I asked for the money to pay the cartels for the drugs. I had to use my own funds. The FBI still owes me thousands of dollars for these out-of-pocket expenses.
“I asked the FBI for help when I started getting threats, but the only thing that happened is that everyone starting running for cover to protect their careers,” Dutton said. “One of the FBI agents said politics got in the way, and that they had to close out the investigation and end their relationship with me.”
Dutton shared tales of law enforcement corruption with Valdez:
Dutton said other informants told him that the Zetas drug cartel has a high-level member in Las Cruces whose wife holds a non-law enforcement job in the DEA’s office.
The whistle-blowers also alleged that the corruption they’ve encountered includes a prominent doctor in El Paso who provides prescriptions for drugs to people who need to pass lie-detector tests.
“The FBI was provided with all this information, and I guess that’s why they’re now saying that we’re crazy,” Dutton said.
Frustrated, Dutton and Gonzales turned to U.S. lawmakers and Judicial Watch for help.
Chris Ferrell, Judicial Watch research director, confirmed that Dutton has been in contact with his office.
“These are very serious allegations that should be investigated by law enforcement,” Ferrell said. “There are too many details and specifics to just ignore them. The threats against them (Dutton and Gonzales) also should be investigated.”
It’s not like U.S. authorities don’t know about border corruption.
The reliable Google search turns up a large number of such cases like that of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Margarita Crispin. In in April 2011, Crispin was sentenced “to 20 years in prison for selling out to Mexican drug traffickers.”
“It was amazing to us to find out that Margarita Crispin received $5 million for her services to allow loads of marijuana to come through her checkpoint along the border,” assistant director of the Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, told NBC News.
What’s even more amazing is that U.S. authorities are surprised to say that this is a “disturbing trend.” It has been a disturbing trend dating back far too many years. It will continue to be a distrubing trend unless the FBI and other members of U.S. law enforcement address the problem instead of being the problem.
