BORDER AGENT IS ACCUSED OF TAKING BRIBES

An immigration inspector is accused of accepting up to $90,000 in bribes in
exchange for allowing undocumented immigrants and drugs to cross the border
at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Jose Antonio Olvera, 36, is accused of accepting between $2,000 and $4,000
in bribes from a smuggling ring for each load of drugs and immigrants.

According to a federal indictment unsealed yesterday, Olvera allowed the
smuggling through his lane between October 1997 and November 1999.

Guillermo Hernandez Mancilla, the 40-year-old owner of a dry-cleaning
business who lives in Ensenada, is accused of paying the bribes.

Daniel Villegas, 26, and Guadalupe Polanco, a 44-year-old domestic worker
who lives in Chula Vista, are accused of working with Hernandez.

Another man named in the indictment is still at large.

The Border Corruption Task Force began the investigation in 1998 after a
U.S. agent detected more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana in a pickup before
it reached Olvera's lane.

The agent reported the incident to investigators after becoming suspicious.
The load he saw was poorly concealed under a sheet of plastic, said Joseph
Artes, the special agent in charge of the Justice Department's Office of
the Inspector General in San Diego.

Artes said the number of allegations of corruption involving immigration
inspectors have increased since Operation Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper was started in 1994 to clamp down on the flow of undocumented
immigrants by posting U.S. Border Patrol agents between the ports of entries.

If convicted, Olvera and Hernandez face up to 15 years in prison. Villegas
could face 10 years in prison and Polanco up to five years.