DRUG STING SNARES 16 WITH MILITARY, LAW ENFORCEMENT TIES

They Will Admit To Taking Bribes In Deal With The FBI

LOS ANGELES - Sixteen current and former U.S. soldiers and law enforcement
officers have agreed to admit taking $222,000 in bribes from FBI agents
posing as drug traffickers to help deliver cocaine shipments through
government checkpoints along the Arizona-Mexico border, authorities said
Thursday.

The defendants included a former Immigration and Naturalization Service
inspector, a former Army sergeant, a Nogales, Ariz., police officer, a
former federal prison guard, several Arizona state prison guards, and
current and former Arizona National Guard soldiers.

They escorted at least two drug shipments to Phoenix, Las Vegas and other
places in the southwest. When confronted by state and federal authorities,
they flashed their government badges to keep the vehicles from being
searched, Justice Department officials said.

One suspect, former INS inspector John Castillo, 30, was on duty at a
border checkpoint in Nogales, Ariz., when he twice allowed a truck he knew
to be carrying at least 88 pounds of cocaine to enter the country without
having a search.

"A corrupted border creates a grave threat to the national security of this
country," acting Assistant Attorney General John Richter said. "We will
continue to work to ensure that those employed to protect our homeland do
not sell their offices and badges to the highest bidder."

In December 2001, the FBI set up a fake drug trafficking ring -- nicknamed
Operation Lively Green -- and used cash to lure military and law
enforcement personnel to help distribute the drugs or help move shipments
through checkpoints. More than 1,230 pounds of cocaine -- which had been
seized in other operations -- were transported by the 16 suspects.

More than half of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants apprehended in the
United States last year entered at the Mexico-Arizona border. Department of
Homeland Security officials have expressed concern over recent intelligence
that suggested al-Qaida terrorists may also use the same entry point.

"I'd like to think they'd be less likely to take money to knowingly let
al-Qaida in. But if they take money to let drugs through, you might take
money to let illegals through and you very well might take money to let
al-Qaida through," said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior legal research fellow at
the Heritage Foundation.