U.S. WORKER'S CASE REVEALS HOW DRUG CARTELS GET HELP FROM THIS SIDE OF BORDER

EL PASO - She lived a double life. At the border crossing, she was
Agent Garnica, a veteran law enforcement officer. In the shadows, she
was "La Estrella," the star, a brassy looker who helped drug cartels
make a mockery of the U.S. border.

Martha Garnica devised secret codes, passed stacks of cash through
car windows and sketched out a map for smugglers to safely haul drugs
and undocumented workers across the border. For that she was richly
rewarded; she lived in a spacious house with a built-in pool, owned
two Hummers and vacationed in Europe.

For years, until an intricate sting operation brought her down in
late 2009, Garnica embodied the seldom-discussed role of the United
States in the trafficking trade.

Cartels based in Mexico, where there is a long history of corruption,
increasingly rely on well-placed operatives such as Garnica to reach
their huge customer base in the United States. It is an argument
often made by Mexican officials - that all the attention paid to
corruption in their country has obscured a similar, growing problem
on the U.S. side of the border.

The cartels have grown so sophisticated, law enforcement officials
say, that they are employing Cold War-era spy tactics to recruit and
corrupt U.S. officials.

"In order to stay in business, the drug trafficking organizations
have to look at different methods for moving product," said Thomas
Frost, an assistant inspector general in the Department of Homeland
Security. "The surest method is by corrupting a border official. The
amount of money available to corrupt employees is staggering."

In late August, Garnica's double life ended. U.S. District Judge
David Briones sentenced her to 20 years in prison after she pleaded
guilty to six counts of drug smuggling, human trafficking and
bribery. She was, in the words of prosecutors, a "valued asset" of
the crime syndicate La Linea based in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
directing the movements of at least five men, four of whom are in
prison or dead.

"Everybody makes mistakes," she said in court, wearing handcuffs and
an orange prison jumpsuit. "I take responsibility for my mistakes."

Garnica's saga - pieced together from hundreds of pages of court
testimony, tape-recorded conversations, and interviews with border
officials, investigators, undercover agents and members of the
judiciary - underscores the enormous challenge facing the United
States as it tries to curtail the $25 billion-a-year business of
illegal drug trafficking.

Corruption is on the rise in the ranks of U.S. law enforcement
working the border, and nowhere is the problem more acute than in the
frontline jobs with Garnica's former employer, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, according to federal investigators. Garnica's
stiff sentence represented a rare victory in the struggle to root out
tainted government employees.

Homeland Security statistics suggest the rush to fill thousands of
border enforcement jobs has translated into lower hiring standards.
Barely 15 percent of Customs and Border Protection applicants undergo
polygraph tests and of those, 60 percent were rejected by the agency
because they failed the polygraph or were not qualified for the job,
said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who oversees a Senate subcommittee on
homeland security.

The number of CBP corruption investigations opened by the inspector
general climbed from 245 in 2006 to more than 770 this year.
Corruption cases at its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, rose from 66 to more than 220 over the same period. The
vast majority of corruption cases involve illegal trafficking of
drugs, guns, weapons and cash across the Southwest border.

"We have in our country today a big presence of the Mexican cartels,"
Pryor said. "With about 50 percent of the nation's methamphetamine
and marijuana coming through Mexico and about 90 percent of the
cocaine, there is a huge financial incentive for cartels to try to
corrupt our people."

CBP Commissioner Alan D. Bersin said the rise in investigations might
simply correspond to the rapid growth in personnel.

Corruption of "customs officials all over the world has been a
perennial problem of border inspection and border enforcement," he
said in an interview. "What we haven't seen is a vast conspiracy in
the workforce."

Still, Frost said, it takes only a handful of dirty government
workers on the inside to make millions for the cartels.

"It would be naive to think a $1 billion smuggling industry would
allow itself to be dependent on one or two corrupt employees, or if
you eliminate that corrupt employee that they won't try to corrupt
someone else," he said.

'An Air About Her'

There was always something about Martha Garnica that just didn't feel right.

As early as 1997, colleagues had suspicions about the assertive young
mother of two who had worked seven years as an El Paso cop before
joining the U.S. Customs Service. (Her division became part of CBP in 2003.)

Garnica had a pattern of filing questionable workplace injury claims
and socialized in bars popular among drug dealers.

"There was an air about her that made her suspect," said Ed Abud, an
internal affairs officer at CBP El Paso who was involved in the investigation.

Garnica's adult daughter and attorney refused interview requests. In
court, her attorney pleaded for leniency and counseling, saying
Garnica had been the victim of abuse by a family member and a boyfriend.

Abud said he now believes Garnica transferred to the federal agency
with an eye toward criminal smuggling activities.

"She came on board probably with the main purpose of trying to
exploit the border for herself," he said recently. "She figured,
'What's in it for me?' "

In November 1997, authorities seized nearly 100 pounds of marijuana
on the Bridge of the Americas into El Paso. An informant fingered
Garnica as part of the conspiracy, according to two investigators.
The FBI opened a case, but it went nowhere.

In March 2005, she came under scrutiny again. That week, a van packed
with 531 pounds of marijuana tried to enter the United States through
the lane Garnica was staffing.

She was not originally scheduled to work the lane that day, but "the
duty roster had been tampered with," said James Smith, head of the
inspector general's investigative unit in El Paso.

As the van neared Garnica in the inspection booth, drug-sniffing dogs
detected the marijuana and agents arrested the driver.

Others on the scene reported that Garnica looked shaken and left for
the day, Smith said. But despite the mounting suspicions, authorities
lacked the evidence to suspend or charge Garnica.

"We kept hitting dead ends," Smith said.

Four years passed before they got their big break. In the spring of
2009, a CBP employee contacted Smith's office. Garnica, he said, was
overly friendly; he suspected she was trying to lure him into the
smuggling business.

The man was the perfect target, right out of the Cold War-era
espionage handbook. He was recently divorced, with a child heading to
college and a modest government salary. He was struggling to pay his bills.

"It's no different from spy agencies," Smith said. "They look for
weaknesses. Sex is a biggie. Alcohol, drug abuse, financial woes."

The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because officials
say his life is in danger, agreed to work undercover. His code name
would be Angel.

The Recruitment

It began subtly with chatty text messages, then drinks in a bar. They
would talk about the weather and gripe about work, intermingling
Spanish and English as so many people along the border do.

Within a few months, they were meeting for dinner. Garnica always
picked up the tab and Angel always wore a wire, their taped
conversations and text messages sent directly to Smith and his team
in the inspector general's office.

"Garnica was becoming his best friend," Smith said. "Good recruiters
don't just jump into it. They chip through the wall. That's what she
was doing."

On Aug. 1, 2009, Garnica invited Angel to Jaguar's, a strip club in
east El Paso, to meet a man she described as a drug trafficker. She
and her boyfriend, Carlos Ramirez-Rosalez, arrived in a Hummer,
according to court records.

The group met in a VIP lounge, where Hugo Alberto Flores Colmenero
told Angel he could supply him with money and a weapon, specifically
a Glock semi-automatic pistol. They exchanged phone numbers.

Garnica offered to pay for a stripper for Angel; he demurred, saying
he had a new girlfriend.

"There's plenty of fish in the sea," Garnica replied, according to
the tape recording.

Angel left Jaguar's around 11 p.m. At 2 a.m., Flores Colmenero left
him a voice message. In a stroke of luck for investigators, instead
of hanging up, Flores Colmenero switched to a call on another line -
all of it recorded by the inspector general's team.

"I've met with el cuatro," or "the fourth," he said, referring to
Angel. He called Garnica "la original."

It was a disturbing revelation.

"We take that to mean that there are two or three other people that
Garnica has brought into the organization," said Juanita Fielden, the
assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case.

A few days later, over dinner at the restaurant La Mar, Flores
Colmenero gave Angel $500 in cash. They brainstormed about how best
to smuggle "motita" - marijuana - into the States. At the time, Angel
was working the "cargo" lanes designated for large vehicles. They
discussed using a van or renting a truck and debated ways to
camouflage the drugs, perhaps buried deep in a pallet of tiles or a
load of televisions.

On Aug. 19, one of Flores Colmenero's brothers was killed in a
shootout at the Seven & Seven bar in Juarez. The next time Angel saw
Garnica, she explained that Flores Colmenero had gone into hiding.
Before they parted, she handed him $200.

In late September 2009, after four months of secret meetings and text
messages, free drinks and small bribes, Garnica decided to test
Angel. Until then they had only talked about dirty deals. Now she
wanted action.

She gave Angel a minor task: sign a form claiming the injury she
suffered playing volleyball actually occurred at work. He did what he
was told.

Confident that she'd reeled him in, she asked for something more
serious. She wanted him to request a change in his work assignment:
Move to the Ysleta Port of Entry, the smallest of the three El Paso
border stations, and switch to the midnight shift when traffic is the
lightest. Investigators say smugglers prefer off-peak hours to ensure
they can steer into the lane of a friendly inspector without being
blocked by clogged traffic.

For investigators, each meeting and message provided insight into the
methods and mind-set of the cartels.

"We were able to see the entire recruitment process play out through
Angel," Smith said. "It starts with small probes. If you're willing
to do that, it escalates."

New recruits get tested, and with each test they pass it becomes more
difficult for them to refuse, he said.

For the next few weeks, Angel met often with Garnica and
Ramirez-Rosalez, discussing money, vehicles and a plan to smuggle a
friend into the country. The person would ride in a white Volkswagen
Beetle with a company logo on the doors.

In the predawn darkness of Sunday, Oct. 11, the vehicle approached
the Ysleta border crossing station and steered into Angel's
inspection lane. Inside were two of Ramirez-Rosalez's brothers, both
undocumented Mexicans who would eventually be arrested as part of
Garnica's smuggling ring. At the time, Angel made a show of checking
the driver's identification, then waved the Volkswagen through.
Investigators followed the car straight to Garnica's house.

"We couldn't believe it," said one of the agents.

At 7 a.m., Garnica sent Angel a text message: "Prueba de fuego.
Superada." Trial by fire. Passed.

The following afternoon, Angel, Garnica and Ramirez-Rosalez met in a
McDonald's parking lot. From the passenger-side window of one of her
Hummers, Garnica handed Angel a pile of $20 bills wrapped in a piece of paper.

"It's 500," she said.

Undercover Risks

Angel was suffering the strains of his own double life: undercover
agent to a tight circle of investigators, dirty employee to many of
his co-workers.

Investigators worried about his safety and the psychological effects
of "living a lie," as Smith put it.

"I was nervous from Day One," Angel said in an interview after
Garnica was sentenced. "I was always afraid her associates would get
on to me."

As the undercover operation continued, the inspector general's office
pored over Garnica's phone records and finances. She had two homes,
two Hummers, a Cadillac and a truck. Her extended family took
cruises, traveled to Europe and decorated one house with ostentatious
statues and a fountain - signs she was living above her government salary.

In several instances, Garnica's number turned up in the cellphones of
convicted drug traffickers and money launderers. Vehicles used in
other smuggling cases appeared at her homes, according to
surveillance information.

On the night before Halloween, Garnica summoned Angel to the Agave
bar. They had been talking for days about a big shipment - two large
vehicles. The payoff would be several thousand dollars.

Angel raced to meet Garnica; he had less than an hour before his
shift began. He had trouble finding the bar, he said later, and when
he spotted it, a pair of beefy men were guarding the door. "That made
me uncomfortable," he said.

"I felt like everybody in the bar looked me up and down when I walked
in," he said later.

As he scanned the room, Garnica pulled him aside to a table. She
handed him a Nextel walkie-talkie-style phone and a cocktail napkin
with 12 ordinary phrases written in Spanish. Each corresponded to a
lane at the port.

"You have to memorize this," she said. Angel hurried out of the bar
to change his clothes and report for work.

Around 1 a.m., Angel pushed the button on the phone and said simply:
"Esta haciendo mucho frio" - it's very cold out. The code words meant
he was working Lane 10.

But Garnica, who investigators spotted watching the station in one of
her Hummers, messaged back: "Hay mucha de la fea." The slangy phrase
translates roughly: "There's a lot of ugliness" - criminal code
warning of the presence of Mexican military or law enforcement. They
aborted the delivery.

A week later, Angel and Garnica repeated the routine, Angel again
remarking on the cold weather to direct smugglers to Lane 10. He'd
been given $3,500 in advance and told to look for a red pickup truck.

When the truck reached Angel in the booth, he recognized Garnica's
nephew in the passenger seat and one of Ramirez-Rosalez's brothers
behind the wheel.

"I acted like it was a normal inspection," he recalled. "I stalled
for a few minutes to make it look like I was checking the vehicle."
Then he waved the pair through.

Just up the road, El Paso police stopped the truck, loaded with more
than 160 pounds of marijuana, and arrested the pair. Two days later,
a federal grand jury meeting in secret indicted Garnica and her
co-conspirators.

Garnica, unaware of the indictments or Angel's role in the sting,
prepared to bring across another load. The next shipment was set for
the night of Nov. 17. At the last minute, investigators told Angel to
call it off.

"We'd already indicted Garnica and we didn't want to take any more
risks," Smith said.

The next day, La Estrella was behind bars.