BORDER INSPECTOR ACCUSED OF ALLOWING 3,000 POUNDS OF COCAINE INTO
U.S. OVER 5 YEARS

A veteran customs inspector recently arrested in Texas on drug
charges helped traffickers smuggle about 3,000 pounds of cocaine into
the country over five years, according to a court document filed last week.

The inspector, Jorge A. Leija, 43, allowed smugglers to drive cars
loaded with cocaine through his entry lane at the Eagle Pass border
crossing, about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio, without
inspection, according to testimony by an unnamed Drug Enforcement
Administration agent.

Mr. Leija was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from January 2001
to October 2006, the agent said at a bail hearing on Thursday in
Federal District Court in Del Rio, Tex.

Court documents said Mr. Leija was also paid $30,000 to make false
statements on an application he submitted in September 2003 to obtain
an American passport for another person.

Mr. Leija worked as an inspector for 11 years, said Rick Pauza, a
Customs and Border Protection spokesman in Laredo, Tex.

Late last month, a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Leija on charges
of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and making
a false statement. He was arrested on Oct. 30.

Mr. Leija had been placed on administrative duty more than two years
before his arrest and assigned to a desk job, said his lawyer,
Richard F. Gutierrez.

Mr. Leija's arrest is the latest in scores of corruption cases the
past few years involving agents along the nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

The cases have come as the Border Patrol and other agencies that
police the border have significantly increased their ranks. Internal
affairs investigators are being added to address corruption, but the
problem, officials have said, could get worse before it gets better.

Ronald D. Moore, the special agent in charge of the Homeland Security
Department's inspector general's office in Houston, which helped
investigate the Leija case, said the office "takes very seriously
allegations of public corruption involving Homeland Security
employees and works with other law enforcement agencies to ensure
that those who violate the public trust are brought to justice."

Based on the drug enforcement agent's testimony, Magistrate Judge
Dennis G. Green ordered Mr. Leija held without bail, citing his
frequent travel to Mexico and "the huge amount of cocaine involved."

Mr. Leija, a naturalized American citizen born in the Mexican state
of Coahuila, told investigators that he traveled to Mexico three or
four times a week to visit his children. He earned an annual salary
of nearly $62,000 at the time of his arrest, according to the
detention order, but owed more than $50,000 in credit card debt and
car payments.

Mr. Leija faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison and a fine
of up to $4 million if convicted. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 20.