Federal prosecutors allege that two officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations spent years working with an unnamed drug cartel. The officers allegedly allowed the criminal organization to move large amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin through their inspection lanes, court documents revealed.
Jesse Clark Garcia and Diego Bonillo are two CBP officers named in a criminal indictment out of the U.S. Southern District of California accusing them of drug trafficking and drug trafficking conspiracy; both men have been in custody since May. Alex Riggins first reported the case from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The two officers allegedly coordinated with smugglers in Mexico so that certain vehicles filled with drugs would go through their inspection lane. Prosecutors allege that they could allow the smugglers to pass freely in exchange for hefty bribes of tens of thousands of dollars. Details listed in Riggins’s story point to the CBP officers spending thousands on luxury fashion items, European vacations, and high-priced boxing seats in Las Vegas.
The criminal indictment states that in April 2021, a woman drove a Kia Soul to Garcia’s lane at the Tecate port of entry. The woman had several cars in front of her when a lane opened. CBP officers directed her to that lane where authorities found 140 pounds of cocaine and fentanyl and 25 pounds of methamphetamine. As part of the investigation, authorities learned that the woman constantly crossed through Garcia’s Lane, and when he was not in service, she would not cross. Court documents list several other crossings that appear to show both Garcia and Bonillo worked with smugglers so they could wave them through their inspection lanes.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.