Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano criticized Republican lawmakers for suggesting that immigration is on the verge of getting out of control, the Associated Press reported. While inspecting border security in El Paso, Napolitano said arrests and the seizure of drugs, weapons and currency are up. “I believe the border is…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Oh, the difference a border can make. While Ciudad Juarez in Mexico is tied up in a drug war that has claimed 10,000 lives in the past five years, its border town, El Paso in the U.S., was ranked the safest place in the country with a population over 500,000 for the…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com This was no ordinary laundry detergent. Agents at a Mexican border crossing near El Paso found $52,000 vacuum-sealed and stuffed into a detergent box, KFOX/CNN reports. Edgar Lopez Chavez, 36, was arrested while trying to cross into Mexico, where he is a citizen. U.S. law requires anyone with more than $10,000…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The feds have busted U.S. Border Patrol agent from El Paso and his girlfriend on charges of buying high powered weapons and ammunition to smuggle into Mexico, the El Paso Times reported. Agent Ricardo Montalvo, 28, and his girlfriend, Carla Gonzales-Ortiz, 29, were arrested on conspiracy, firearms and smuggling charges, the…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com What’s wrong with this picture? El Paso, Texas, County Commissioner Guillermo Gandara Jr., who publicly had taken a hardline against drugs, was arrested by the DEA on drug trafficking charges, UPI reported. The arrest, part of a multi-agency investigation, took place late Wednesday, DEA spokeswoman Diana Apodaca confirmed to the El…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com And now for a little news about corruption just north of the Mexican border. Indictments unsealed on Friday show that an ex-judge and three businessmen were arrested after a years-long federal investigation into corruption in El Paso County, the AP reports Anthony Cobos, the former county judge, allegedly received bribes and…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A former supervisory intelligence research specialist for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso, Tex. pleaded guilty Thursday to misusing his diplomatic passport and submitting fictitious expenses that amounted to at least $70,000. Ahmed Adil Abdallat, 64, pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso to two counts of misuse of…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com David Cuthbertson, head of the FBI’s El Paso Division, has been named assistant director of the Justice Information Services Division. Cuthbertson joined the FBI in 1988 and was assigned to the Cincinnati Division working motorcycle and violent street gangs and drug trafficking. In 1992, he transferred to the Dallas Division, where…
