On Wednesday, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector, Luis Enrique Ramirez, 39, was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in March to bribery, cocaine distribution and conspiracy charges.
According to prosecutors, between August 2005 and January 2009, Ramirez took $500,000 in bribes to allow illegal aliens and cocaine into the U.S. from Mexico.When Ramirez was arrested last year, he admitted to investigators that while employed as a CBP officer, he was also working for a Mexican drug cartel.
Ramirez who worked in Brownsville, Texas, was actually captured while trying to re-enter the U.S., after he fled to Mexico in an attempt to escape prosecution.
In March 2010, the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee heard testimony from top federal officials about growing corruption of U.S. law enforcement along the U.S/Mexican border.
FBI assistant director for criminal investigations, Kevin Perkins, informed the subcommittee that in the last two years, there have been 400 corruption cases involving U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement officers working in the Southwest border region.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection assistant commissioner, James Tomsheck, warned the Senators that Mexican drug cartels have stepped up their efforts to corrupt and infiltrate the Border Patrol. He also reported that in 2009 alone, Customs and Border Protection conducted corruption investigations on 576 of their own agents.
In 2010, CBP conducted well over 750 corruption investigations.
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