U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE INVESTIGATED LENIENCY WITH ROGUE AGENTS ALLEGED

U.S. Senate and Treasury investigators have launched simultaneous
nationwide probes of alleged mismanagement within the U.S. Customs Service,
questioning systematic cronyism and undeserved leniency toward favored
employees who break the law.

Both investigations were prompted in part by stories in The Miami Herald
that found dozens of examples of careers that flourished after misdeeds
such as dating drug smugglers, tampering with evidence, skimming seized
drug cash, having sex with a paid informant and other crimes and policy
violations.

The investigations are expected to culminate this summer in Senate
oversight hearings and proposed reforms. One possibility: stripping the
20,000-employee Customs Service of all its internal affairs functions.

Customs' ongoing investigation found inappropriate leniency in at least
five cases cited by The Herald, and Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly has
begun a major agency shake-up that has included forced moves of Miami's
three top administrators.

Kelly's actions are the latest in a series of attempted reforms imposed on
the agency by federal regulators and oversight panels in recent years.

A team from the Treasury Department's Office of Inspector General is
reviewing all the Florida cases detailed by The Herald. Last week, the team
told Customs it is expanding the probe to include an audit of 1997 and 1998
internal affairs case files in El Paso, Texas; New Orleans; Philadelphia;
Chicago; Los Angeles; Miami; and the Customs database center in Virginia.

In addition, U.S. Sen. William V. Roth Jr., R-Del., chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee, requested three years of disciplinary records
nationwide, including all complaints, allegations of employee misconduct,
and all of Customs' internal referrals to federal prosecutors.

The Dec. 13 newspaper stories "raised serious questions about the ability
of Customs to effectively assess allegations of mismanagement, and to
impose appropriate discipline in cases of proven misconduct," Roth wrote in
a Dec. 17 letter to Kelly.

In response, Kelly ordered the Miami transfers, changed three assistant
commissioners, stripped regional commands of many promotional and
disciplinary decisions and began a shake-up designed to thwart unfair
employment practices.

Kelly, who in August became the sixth head of the agency in the past
decade, detailed that shake-up in a Jan. 14 response to Sen. Roth.

Kelly's letter says discipline was inappropriately lenient in cases where
South Florida employees were caught wrecking a Customs car while drinking,
soliciting an undercover Miami police officer for prostitution in a Customs
car, planting marijuana in the bags of a cruise ship passenger, and
skimming seized drug cash.

In the marijuana case, Kelly's office referred the 5-year-old internal
affairs file to the U.S. attorney's office for prosecution. Federal
prosecutors declined to file charges.

In another case, a former Miami supervisor promoted to Washington after he
was caught living with a drug smuggler has been put on administrative leave
while under investigation for possibly continuing contact with the woman.