Search Results: cbp (16)

The driver of a hearse filled with 68 pounds of marijuana told federal agents on Saturday that he had taken up smuggling because his Tucson funeral-services business “had been slow.

Christian Lee Zuniga, 28, a U.S. citizen from Nogales, Arizona, was arrested after agents became suspicious of him and his hearse and found the pot, court records show.

This is actually the second headline-making smuggling failure for Zuniga.

The Phoenix New Times has the full details.

Claudia didn’t think anything was wrong when United States Customs and Border Protection agents flagged her for an in-depth security screening after the early-morning flight from her native Chile landed at Los Angeles International Airport early on October 8, 2015. “It’s normal,” she says. “Sometimes the officers review people.” Besides, Claudia had never been in trouble in her life.

Agents directed her into a big, open room, where Claudia was told to place her luggage on a table for examination. Officer Torres, a Customs agent with a dark mustache, asked about her planned one-week visit to San Francisco and made friendly small talk as he went through her suitcase and purse. When he noticed her copy of Game of Thrones, he asked about her favorite character. When the 27-year-old said, “Jon Snow,” he smiled and replied, “You know nothing.”


Cops, backed by federal law, have been taking stuff from innocent people, and some not-so-innocent people, at alarming rates for more than a decade. The government’s “equitable sharing” civil forfeiture rules encourage federal agents and some local cops to seize goods from folks they believe are criminals. Encouragement comes in the form of language that lets agencies keep what they take. Some departments have been known to proudly advertise that their fancy new vehicles were taken from alleged bad guys.
And unlike the rest of our criminal justice system, these federal rules don’t require due process. In fact, the law says if you want your stuff back, you must sue the government to prove it wasn’t used in the commission of a crime. The burden of proof is on you.
California U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, along with New Jersey Rep. Scott Garrett, this week proposed new legislation that would change that. LA Weekly has more.

Phil Konstantin
San Ysidro Border Crossing By Phil Konstantin


As the busiest land border crossing in the world, the U.S./Mexico border checkpoint at San Ysidro in California has seen its fair share of smuggling attempts. But to this day, the stop and seizure of a van stuffed with four tons of marijuana back in 2002 remains as one of the largest weed busts on record at the bustling international checkpoint.
The discovery was made as the van was just a few car lengths away from a successful border crossing, in the lane of a seasoned Border Protection inspector by the name of Lorne “Hammer” Jones. Long respected among his peers as the last line of defense on our nation’s southern border, Lorne Jones, it turns out, had spent over a decade working in cahoots with powerful Mexican drug cartels, repeatedly waving through vehicles he knew to be loaded with illegal drugs, or illegal aliens.

Legend has it this was actually a poorly-run BHO extraction.

There was a whole lot of shaking going on in northwest Denver last Sunday, when an attempt to make hash oil exploded in a rental duplex in the 2900 block of Julian Street. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey formally charged 40-year-old Jeff Garbarek, 39-year-old Steve Donnel and and 43-year-old Scott Mitchell with fourth-degree arson in connection with their cannabis-cooking incident; they are scheduled to appear in Denver County Court on April 9. In the meantime, hands off the butane! This was just the latest in a string of hash-oil disasters in the Mile High City; keep reading for our top six.

The house on Allencrest Lane — a tidy four-bedroom, three-bath ranch-style in North Dallas — isn’t the first place one would look for a weed-growing mastermind named Bone.
Nevertheless, that’s where DEA agents tracked down 37-year-old Brian Edward Deloney in June 2010, not to mention several gallon-sized bags of hydroponic weed, nearly a dozen live marijuana plants under fluorescent lights, and a Tupperware container full of cash. Our friends at the Dallas Observer have the full story.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
I don’t feel like a terrorist just because I smoke weed. Do you?

​You knew it would come to this, right? Lest you think those hard-working goons at the Department of Homeland Security are slacking in their jobs — you know, spying on your everyday activities — it has been revealed that the domestic surveillance agency has been scouring your online postings for, among other things, the word “marijuana.”

Homeland Security personnel regularly monitor updates on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS memo released by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), reports Animal New York.
That baseline list of terms for which the DHS searches — or at least a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks — reveals which specific words generate realtime IOI reports.

FOIA Geek
Six Predator B drones like this one are authorized to operate against marijuana smugglers

Program Costs Taxpayers

$​2,608 Per Seized Pound of Marijuana

U.S. border patrol agents are using drones — the same type used to fight the Afghanistan war — to locate illegal shipments of marijuana being smuggled across the Mexican/American border.

But based on the federal government’s own statistics, it remains to be seen if use of the expensive, unmanned aircraft to supposedly halt the flow of weed into the United States can be financially justified, reports Noel Brinkerhoff at AllGov.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) currently operates six Predator B aircraft from two locations. Four of them are based in Sierra Vista, Arizona, according to the agency, and two in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

LEAP
Terry Nelson, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: “It is really no surprise to me that our prohibition policy isn’t helping to achieve any reduction in drug trafficking”

​A newly released report from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that Mexican drug cartels are rapidly gaining ground inside the United States, despite extensive efforts by the government to crack down on trafficking.

In light of the findings, a group of Border Patrol agents, police officers and judges is saying it is time to legalize and regulate drugs in order to defund the cartels that make so much money from the illicit drug market.
“As someone who has fought on the front lines of the failed ‘war on drugs’ for decades it is really no surprise to me that our prohibition policy isn’t helping to achieve any reduction in drug trafficking,” said Terry Nelson, a board member for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.
“We should have learned this lesson decades ago with alcohol prohibition, but let’s hope that the data in this new government report helps more members of Congress and Obama administration officials to realize that their ‘drug war’ strategy is an abysmal failure and that it’s time for a new direction,” Nelson said.

Customs and Border Protection
CBP officials proudly released this grainy photo of the compressed bales of low-grade marijuana they took from a 74-year-old man on Saturday.

​U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have arrested a 74-year-old Albuquerque, New Mexico man who they claim attempted to smuggle 172 pounds of marijuana across the El Paso port of entry from Mexico.

The bust happened Saturday at about 12:34 p.m. at the Bridge of the Americas international crossing, reports Kurt Christopher at KOB.com. A 1989 Chevrolet Scottsdale 1500 pickup was pulled from the line for inspection and CBP drug sniffing dog “Frankie” alert to the gas tank of the vehicle.
CBP officers found two large compressed bales concealed in metal containers in the gas trunk. The contents of the bales tested positive for marijuana.
Well, at least that’s some more shitty, gasoline-smelling weed we won’t have to smoke. 
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