BORDER INSPECTOR ARRESTED IN POT SMUGGLING CASE

'B.C. Bud' Found In Van Has Street Value Of $1.6 Million

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security border inspector was arrested
by his colleagues Monday on charges of smuggling 535 pounds of potent
"B.C. bud" with an estimated street value of $1.6 million into the
United States from Canada.

Cory Whitfield, 35, who started his career eight years ago at the
border at Blaine, may have ended it just down the road at Lynden on
Monday when he drove up to the inspection booth in a white van and
encountered fellow Customs and Border Protection inspector Rodney Nash.

When Whitfield showed Nash a U.S. diplomatic passport as ID, Nash
asked why he had a diplomatic passport, according to charging
documents. Whitfield said, "I'm one of us," explaining that he is a
CPB inspector assigned to the Vancouver, B.C., airport where he clears
passengers heading to the United States.

Nash asked Whitfield the purpose of his trip, and Whitfield said he
was delivering a car engine to a friend in Bellingham. Nash walked
around to the rear of the van, discovered that the doors were locked,
and asked Whitfield for the keys.

He swung the doors open and saw an engine block strapped to the floor.
He also saw several cabinets along the van walls. When he opened one,
it was stuffed with plastic bags containing what appeared to be marijuana.

Nash went back to the driver's window and asked Whitfield if he knew
what was in the cabinets. Whitfield said he did not know.

"You're telling me that you do not know what is in the van," Nash
asked. "No, I don't know what's in the van," Whitfield replied.

Other inspectors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement special
agents then questioned Whitfield further.

They concluded that his story about taking the engine to a Ford
dealership in Bellingham to soup up a recently purchased 1971 Ford
Mach 1 simply didn't add up.

Under questioning, he finally "admitted that he was not truthful about
the engine," according to the complaint filed by Special Agent Jacob
Black of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Whitfield revealed he had met the van's owner while moonlighting as a
bodyguard at private parties and local bars in the Vancouver area.

He told agents the van's owner told him to use the engine as a cover
story at the border and deliver the van to Bellis Fair Mall in
Bellingham, park it and go inside.

He was told to drive it back to Canada after its contents were
unloaded.

"Whitfield said that he 'assumed' there was marijuana in the van,"
because he knew that the van's owner was involved in marijuana
trafficking. "Whitfield did not know how much he was getting paid, but
that it would probably be worth his while," according to the complaint.

But the suspected smuggler claimed it was not just money that
motivated him.

Whitfield told agents that he was at a party with the van's owner when
he met a man he knows only as "Dennis." Dennis and the van's owner
"confronted him with photographs depicting Whitfield in compromising
situations involving illegal drugs and a sexual encounter with a
female at the party," according to the complaint.

Whitfield told agents that they threatened to send the photos to
Whitfield's boss and his wife if he did not do as instructed. And he
said "that if he talked, he would be a 'dead man,' " according to the
complaint. Asked to elaborate on the threat to his life, Whitfield
refused, the complaint says.

Agents drove Whitfield to Seattle yesterday after testing the green,
leafy substance for the presence of tetrahydracannabinol (THC), the
psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

The test was positive. Based on a market value of "B.C. bud" in
Western Washington of between $3,000 and $4,000 per pound, the agents
"conservatively" calculated that the 535.5 pounds of marijuana has a
street value of about $1,605,000.

If convicted of smuggling and possession with intent to distribute the
marijuana, Whitfield could be fined as much as $2 million and face a
mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years and up to 40 years in a federal
prison.

He is confined at the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac pending a
hearing tomorrow.

Meanwhile, he has been placed on administrative leave pending the
outcome of the criminal case, according to DHS spokesman Mike Milne.