2 CBP officers took to leave undocumented migrants in the United States

Two customs agents and the protection of American border in San Diego are faced with federal accusations for having pretended to have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to allow vehicles carrying migrants undocumented to pass without control in their inspection routes at the port of San Ysidro, according to a non-sealed criminal complaint on Thursday.

Federal agents arrested officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez last week and the prosecutors accused them of multiple leaders linked to the amendment of undocumented migrants in the United States for financial purposes. They were also accused each of receiving bribes as a civil servant.

Prosecutors allege that the two men would inform co-conspirators in Mexico, the ways that had been assigned to them at work, then the smugglers would cross these paths with undocumented migrants as a passengers. The prosecutors said that Almonte authorized at least 45 level crossings, that the two men had been paid thousands for each vehicle they signaled at the same period as the alleged criminal driving, Almonte and Rodriguez began to make deposits in unusually important cash in their bank accounts.

Last week, after Almonte was in detention, the investigators would have seized nearly $ 70,000 in cash, they thought that his romantic partner was trying to move to Tijuana of a San Diego storage locker. Prosecutors wrote in a judicial file that Almonte is potentially faced with additional accusations for money laundering and obstruction to justice.

“Any customs agent and border protection that helps or make their eyes on smugglers leading undocumented immigrants to the United States betrays their oath and endangers our national security,” American prosecutor Andrew Haden said in a statement. “Those who engage in such misconduct will be held responsible for the majority of the law.”

Almonte and Rodriguez are at least the fourth and fifth CBP officers in the San Diego region to deal with similar corruption charges in the past two years. A jury condemned Leonard Darnell George last year after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for allowing drugs and undocumented migrants to be introduced in smuggling through its inspection path to the port of entrance to San Ysidro. He was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison.

Jesse Clark Garcia and Diego Bonillo should be tried this summer for having worked for a Mexican drug trafficking organization, allow vehicles loaded with fentanyl, heroine, cocaine and methamphetamine to pass without control in their tracks at the Otay Mesa and the Ports de Tecate.

“The alleged actions of these individuals are deeply disturbing and do not reflect the values ​​of CBP or the vast majority of our dedicated staff who serve with integrity every day,” the director of field operations for the San Diego field office of CBP told the Tribune Office. “We fully cooperate with the investigation and take all the necessary measures to ensure responsibility. Public confidence is essential, and we remain determined to respect the highest standards of professionalism and ethical conduct. ”

An Almonte lawyer refused to comment on the accusations against his client. Rodriguez’s lawyer stressed that the case was still in the “stages of infants”.

“Admittedly, he has the presumption of innocence, and we are impatient to work in the current situation,” said defense lawyer Michael Hawkins.

Federal investigators began to discover alleged corruption in September, when several alleged human smugglers told the authorities that they had been invited to cross the border in San Ysidro in certain ways and at certain times, according to a probable declaration of cause written by a special agent to the Inspector General’s internal security ministry.

These defendants declared downright or alluded to the fact that their group Sudyed several CBP officers, wrote the investigation agent. “Based on the examination of defendants’ crossing stories, telephone evidence and other documents, Almonte and Rodriguez were identified as corrupt officers,” wrote the agent.

In an example underlined in the complaint, a suspect of smuggling arrested in early September told the investigators of three smuggling trips succeeded in late August. When the investigators checked the surveillance images and the internal files, they learned that the smuggler had crossed the Almonte way once and the Rodriguez way twice, according to the complaint.

Investigators learned that Almonte and Rodriguez would receive a prior opinion for vehicles that would be part of the smuggling plot, according to the complaint. When these vehicles arrived at their stands, they entered the CBP system saying that only the driver was in the vehicle, even when surveillance images showed the passengers clearly.

Prosecutors alleged that from last year, Almonte and Rodriguez “filed abnormal cash amounts” in their bank accounts after having deposited a minimum amount in cash during the 18 months earlier. During a three -month section at the end of last year, Almonte deposited $ 22,000 in cash while Rodriguez would have deposited $ 24,000 in cash in a period of six months, according to the complaint.

A search warrant linked to the case and requests filed by prosecutors seeking to keep Almonte in detention indicates that the romantic partner of Almonte tried to move large sums of money directly after visiting Almonte in prison. The investigators studied the woman and seized about $ 17,000 from her handbag and an additional $ 50,000 of a storage unit which she started to rent after the arrest of Almonte, according to the prosecutors.

Hawkins, Rodriguez’s lawyer, said that his client is from the Dominican Republic who legally immigrated to the United States at the age of 18 and “immediately learned English and graduated in automotive engineering”. Hawkins said Rodriguez is a hard worker who “spent an important period” in the National Guard. “Of all the accounts, Ricardo was and is a man living his American dream,” said the lawyer.

In the hearings of the last court, the prosecutors argued that the two men were risk of theft which had potentially access to large sums of money and should be held without deposit. A federal magistrate did not agree and set up deposits for the two men, but agreed to suspend his release from the guard to give prosecutors a chance to appeal the decision.

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.