By Allan Lengel tickelthewire.com David J. Johnson, who headed the FBI’s Salt Lake City division, is shifting gears a bit to the west and taking over the San Francisco office. Johnson began his career with the FBI in 1991, and was first posted a Violent Crime Squad in the San Jose Resident Agency. In 1994,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com What is a teenager doing with nearly $500,000 in meth? That’s what the Border Patrol agents want to know after a service dog sniffed out contraband in his sedan at the Pine Valley-area checkpoint in southern California, San Diego 6 reports. Agents said they found 23 packages of meth that have an…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Two weapons linked to the botched gun-trafficking Operation Fast and Furious were found at the scene of a deadly drug cartel gunfight last month, the Tribune Washington Bureau reports. The guns – an AK-47 assault rifle and 5.7 mm pistol – illustrate that some of the 2,000 weapons lost under Operation Fast and…
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…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A former Border Patrol agent was sentenced in El Paso, Tex. to 51 months in prison for his role in buying guns to be smuggled into Mexico, the Associated Press reports. The sentence was part of a plea deal in which Ricardo Montalvo agreed to plead guilty to recruiting others as straw…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Ghosts, zombies, witches and princesses. The increasing number of wannabe trick-or-treaters who crossed the Mexican border into the U.S. on Halloween posed tricky challenges to custom inspectors, Fox News reports. Customs and Border Protection has had the painstaking responsiblity of verifying the identify of costumed travelers making their way to El Paso…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A Mexican man accused of killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a 2010 exchange of fire near the Arizona-Mexico border is expected to change his plea today in federal court, the Associated Press reports. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes had pleaded not guilty to murder, assaulting a federal officer and other charges in connection…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A former U.S. Border Patrol officer was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday after admitting he sexually assaulted a Mexican woman traveling in the U.S., the Desert Sun reports. Luis Edward Hermosillo was sentenced immediately after he pleaded guilty in Riverside County Superior Court to sexual penetration by threatening to use…
