USDA: 500,500 workers hired on farms are illegal
Betty Beard
The Arizona Republic
An updated profile of farmworkers estimates there are about 1.1 million hired workers in the U.S. and half of those lack legal authorization to work in the country.
Those 1.1 million hired workers comprise about a third of all agricultural workers. Another 2.05 million are self-employed or unpaid family members.
About 60 percent of all the hired workers do crop work, and the other 40 percent work in the livestock industry. Over the past 20 years, crop farmworkers have shifted to the Southwest and West. Most are located in the Southwest, with California and Texas accounting for almost one-third of the $22 billion spent in 2002 on hired farm labor.
Although hundreds work every fall through winter in the Yuma area picking produce, Arizona did not place among the top 15 states hiring the most workers in 2002.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service said hired farmworkers remain the most economically disadvantaged workers in the country.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Illegal Alien Shoplifter tries to stuff seafood down shorts
Jennifer D'Ottavio - Aug. 15, 2008 11:37 AM
The Arizona Republic
Chandler police arrested a man on suspicion of shoplifting Thursday afternoon after they say he tried to steal packages of shrimp and octopus by stuffing them down his pants.
The incident occurred at about 2:45 p.m. at El Rancho Market, 1076 N. Arizona Avenue.
Police say Ricardo Arcos-Lopez concealed the packages in his shorts and passed all points of sale before being stopped at the door by the store manager.
Lopez first gave officers a false name, but when police learned his true identity they found he was wanted on two felony warrants and one misdemeanor warrant, police said.
Lopez told police he was in the country illegally and had been deported once before, according to the report.
Lopez has assumed false identities in the past to avoid arrest, and police found a fake beard and mustache in his possession, the report said.
The Arizona Republic
Chandler police arrested a man on suspicion of shoplifting Thursday afternoon after they say he tried to steal packages of shrimp and octopus by stuffing them down his pants.
The incident occurred at about 2:45 p.m. at El Rancho Market, 1076 N. Arizona Avenue.
Police say Ricardo Arcos-Lopez concealed the packages in his shorts and passed all points of sale before being stopped at the door by the store manager.
Lopez first gave officers a false name, but when police learned his true identity they found he was wanted on two felony warrants and one misdemeanor warrant, police said.
Lopez told police he was in the country illegally and had been deported once before, according to the report.
Lopez has assumed false identities in the past to avoid arrest, and police found a fake beard and mustache in his possession, the report said.
Monday, August 11, 2008
ATF: Most illegal guns in Mexico come from US
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/08/11/20080811border-guns0811-ON.html
ATF: Most illegal guns in Mexico come from US
106 comments Aug. 11, 2008 03:56 PM
Associated Press
EL PASO - Nearly all illegal guns seized in Mexico come from the United States, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.
ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said investigators have traced 90 to 95 percent of the weapons found in Mexico to the U.S. Generally, only law-enforcement officers or military personnel can legally possess guns in Mexico.
Sullivan, speaking at the fifth annual Border Security Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, said the weapons are being traced as part of an effort by the U.S. and Mexico to stop the illegal flow of guns south.
"In Mexico, investigators have provided some tremendous leads ... to weapons trafficking organizations," Sullivan said.
One bust came in May, when the owner of a Phoenix gun shop was arrested on charges that he knowingly sold hundreds of weapons to "straw purchasers" who funneled the weapons to violent drug cartels in Mexico. Two Mexican men accused of helping to set up the sales also were arrested.
Many of the weapons being found in Mexico have been traced to smuggling points in Southern California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, Sullivan said. But he added that weapons are being traced to sellers in "virtually every state, as far north as Washington state."
Sullivan said recent successes in tracking guns thought to be fueling an increasingly violent drug cartel war are attributed to an "e-trace" system that allows officials on both sides of the border to quickly track weapons.
"Tracing where these weapons are from is critical in the early stages," Sullivan said.
The weapons tracking program is only part of the U.S. effort to help curb drug violence in Mexico and in the U.S., Sullivan said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also spoke at the border conference Monday, said the FBI is working directly with Mexican officials as part of an anti-kidnapping effort in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. His agency has also developed a task force to focus on the "very few law enforcement officials who assist drug cartels" in the U.S., as well as helping curb the growth of prison gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
"We have slowed drug trafficking, tracked down violent fugitives and rescued kidnapping victims," Mueller said.
ATF: Most illegal guns in Mexico come from US
106 comments Aug. 11, 2008 03:56 PM
Associated Press
EL PASO - Nearly all illegal guns seized in Mexico come from the United States, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.
ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said investigators have traced 90 to 95 percent of the weapons found in Mexico to the U.S. Generally, only law-enforcement officers or military personnel can legally possess guns in Mexico.
Sullivan, speaking at the fifth annual Border Security Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, said the weapons are being traced as part of an effort by the U.S. and Mexico to stop the illegal flow of guns south.
"In Mexico, investigators have provided some tremendous leads ... to weapons trafficking organizations," Sullivan said.
One bust came in May, when the owner of a Phoenix gun shop was arrested on charges that he knowingly sold hundreds of weapons to "straw purchasers" who funneled the weapons to violent drug cartels in Mexico. Two Mexican men accused of helping to set up the sales also were arrested.
Many of the weapons being found in Mexico have been traced to smuggling points in Southern California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, Sullivan said. But he added that weapons are being traced to sellers in "virtually every state, as far north as Washington state."
Sullivan said recent successes in tracking guns thought to be fueling an increasingly violent drug cartel war are attributed to an "e-trace" system that allows officials on both sides of the border to quickly track weapons.
"Tracing where these weapons are from is critical in the early stages," Sullivan said.
The weapons tracking program is only part of the U.S. effort to help curb drug violence in Mexico and in the U.S., Sullivan said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also spoke at the border conference Monday, said the FBI is working directly with Mexican officials as part of an anti-kidnapping effort in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. His agency has also developed a task force to focus on the "very few law enforcement officials who assist drug cartels" in the U.S., as well as helping curb the growth of prison gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
"We have slowed drug trafficking, tracked down violent fugitives and rescued kidnapping victims," Mueller said.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
U.S. is out $51M for flying 64,000 illegals to Mexico
Can you believe this line from the story: "U.S. officials are satisfied with the results through the first four years". That tells me one thing: It's time we elect some new U.S. Officials!!!!
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.10.2008
The U.S. government has spent more than $51 million over the past four summers flying nearly 64,000 illegal immigrants home to Mexico City.
The flights are intended to break the smuggling cycle and reduce the desert death count. But evidence shows the binational Interior Repatriation Program has not made any substantial difference in border smuggling or desert deaths. And the principal beneficiary is a Mexican airline contracted to operate the twice-daily flights out of Tucson, critics say.
In the 362 days the voluntary flights were offered, during 2004-2007, the bodies of 342 illegal immigrants were discovered along Arizona's stretch of the U.S-Mexico border — nearly one per day, Southern Arizona medical examiners' records show. The yearly totals recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol show that the number of border deaths each year since the program started in 2004 has been higher than in any of the previous years.
Taking just the number of bodies handled by the Pima County medical examiner, and comparing 2001-2003, before the repatriation program started, with 2004-2007, the number of bodies found hasn't decreased.
"The repatriation efforts have not stopped deaths. There's not even a decrease in deaths," said Jennifer Allen, director of Border Action Network, a Tucson-based immigrants-rights organization. "This continues to be this deadly, exorbitantly costly shell game."
The program — launched in July 2004 after the U.S and Mexican governments agreed on terms — is designed to separate illegal immigrants from smugglers by flying them to Mexico City rather than busing them to Nogales, where they are left at the border and susceptible to smugglers awaiting them with offers to try again. Those who participate also get bus transportation from Mexico City to their hometowns in Mexico.
U.S. officials are satisfied with the results through the first four years, said Kelly Nantel, press secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has run the program since 2005.
She doesn't understand how people can knock a program designed to keep people safe. Without it, the death toll could be higher, she said.
"We could be not taking into account that it reaches temperatures of 120 degrees or higher" in the border desert, Nantel said. "But we do because we recognize that there are human beings involved in this process and it's critical we take care of them."
Through the first two weeks of the program this year, 3,615 illegal immigrants have taken the flights home, she said.
"That's 3,600 individuals who we know are not subject to extreme heat in the desert, to traffickers and smugglers who don't have their safety in mind," she said. "We've seen smugglers and traffickers right there at the border who are only interested in making a buck, waiting to see if they can exploit the individuals."
Money to Mexico
Another criticism is that the United States pays nearly the entire tab — in 2007 Mexico paid $190,000 to provide staffing for the program — and a big chunk of the money lands in the hands of a Mexican airline: AeroMexico.
CSI Aviation Services of Albuquerque, which has the federal contract, partners with AeroMexico, which operates the twice-daily flights out of Tucson International Airport, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
"Why can't we use U.S. carriers?" asked Glenn Spencer, president of the Cochise County-based American Border Patrol, a non-governmental organization that keeps tabs on the Border Patrol. "Probably Mexico won't let us. So, they are profiting off of our nonsense."
The discrepancy is likely explained by two factors, said Judith Gans, immigration-policy program manager at the University of Arizona's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.
"Who's paying reflects both the capacity to pay and the interest in stopping illegal immigration," Gans said.
Mexico wants to protect its citizens and keep them from dying in the desert but receives millions of dollars from remittance sent home from Mexicans living in the U.S. illegally, she said.
The program is as much about foreign policy and diplomacy as it is about immigration, Gans said.
"It's about trying to work with the Mexican government and do something cooperatively," Gans said.
The program is a way for both governments to "get off the hook" for bad policies that perpetuate illegal immigration, said Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, coordinator of the Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona, which studies border deaths. The program is nothing more than a small bandage on a much larger wound, she said.
"The repatriation program, both to the Mexico government and the American government, has been a way to respond to political pressure in each country regarding to the number of people who come across and the number of people who die," Rubio-Goldsmith said.
Thousands turn down offer
The program is voluntary, and every year thousands of illegal immigrants turn down the plane ticket home and hop on the bus back to Nogales, presumably to try again.
An average of 176 illegal immigrants per day have taken the flights home in the past four years. That accounts for only 20 percent of the Mexican illegal border crossers apprehended daily in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector in July-September over the past four years, agency figures show. Illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico cannot take the flights to Mexico City, nor can illegal immigrants with criminal records.
Those numbers don't take into account that many apprehended Mexicans live close to the border, meaning that a flight to Mexico City wouldn't help them, Nantel said. Officials would like to see more take the flights, but Nantel said that 20 percent for a voluntary program is actually pretty good.
Immigrants-rights advocates say the lack of participation demonstrates the ill-advised logic of the program.
"This really shows a shallow understanding of immigration," said Allen, of Border Action Network. "It's this notion that you just move people around, from point A to point B, and that will deter immigration. It underestimates the need for people to migrate. It's much more complex than just the shell game of these deterrent tactics."
Small portion of budget
U.S. officials consider it money well spent because it keeps those who take the flights safe, and, as Nantel says, there is no cost on human life.
"It saves the taxpayers money and addresses a very critical life-safety issue for individuals who are out in the desert in these very dangerous months," Nantel said.
Annual money spent on the program accounts for less than 1 percent of the Department of Homeland Security budget, Gans said. That said, the $51.6 million could have been more wisely spent on a program that targets the root causes of illegal immigration, she said.
The flights home do no harm and likely reduce the odds of dying for the people taking the flights, but the numbers clearly show it hasn't stopped the death toll, Gans said.
"All of these enforcement efforts are going to make a difference at the margin, but anytime the laws are so fundamentally out of alignment with the economic incentives and forces, the economic incentives are going to overwhelm the system," Gans said.
The money could have built as many as 20 miles of fencing on the border or bought camera systems that watch the border, both of which would be more effective deterrents, said Spencer, of the American Border Patrol. The deaths and continued traffic show that the flights don't stop illegal immigrants from trying again, he said.
The problem, he said, is that the Department of Homeland Security doesn't measure its own performance.
Following the first year of the program, the Mexican Foreign Ministry compiled a report on the program. It found that 10 percent of the 14,071 illegal immigrants who took the flights home were apprehended again in the program run, less than the 32 percent recidivism rate in the sector at the time.
Since that report, however, the Interior Repatriation Program has not been studied or analyzed. The Border Patrol doesn't release the current recidivism rate.
"It's a smoke screen," Spencer said. "It makes them appear as if they are doing something."
● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.10.2008
The U.S. government has spent more than $51 million over the past four summers flying nearly 64,000 illegal immigrants home to Mexico City.
The flights are intended to break the smuggling cycle and reduce the desert death count. But evidence shows the binational Interior Repatriation Program has not made any substantial difference in border smuggling or desert deaths. And the principal beneficiary is a Mexican airline contracted to operate the twice-daily flights out of Tucson, critics say.
In the 362 days the voluntary flights were offered, during 2004-2007, the bodies of 342 illegal immigrants were discovered along Arizona's stretch of the U.S-Mexico border — nearly one per day, Southern Arizona medical examiners' records show. The yearly totals recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol show that the number of border deaths each year since the program started in 2004 has been higher than in any of the previous years.
Taking just the number of bodies handled by the Pima County medical examiner, and comparing 2001-2003, before the repatriation program started, with 2004-2007, the number of bodies found hasn't decreased.
"The repatriation efforts have not stopped deaths. There's not even a decrease in deaths," said Jennifer Allen, director of Border Action Network, a Tucson-based immigrants-rights organization. "This continues to be this deadly, exorbitantly costly shell game."
The program — launched in July 2004 after the U.S and Mexican governments agreed on terms — is designed to separate illegal immigrants from smugglers by flying them to Mexico City rather than busing them to Nogales, where they are left at the border and susceptible to smugglers awaiting them with offers to try again. Those who participate also get bus transportation from Mexico City to their hometowns in Mexico.
U.S. officials are satisfied with the results through the first four years, said Kelly Nantel, press secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has run the program since 2005.
She doesn't understand how people can knock a program designed to keep people safe. Without it, the death toll could be higher, she said.
"We could be not taking into account that it reaches temperatures of 120 degrees or higher" in the border desert, Nantel said. "But we do because we recognize that there are human beings involved in this process and it's critical we take care of them."
Through the first two weeks of the program this year, 3,615 illegal immigrants have taken the flights home, she said.
"That's 3,600 individuals who we know are not subject to extreme heat in the desert, to traffickers and smugglers who don't have their safety in mind," she said. "We've seen smugglers and traffickers right there at the border who are only interested in making a buck, waiting to see if they can exploit the individuals."
Money to Mexico
Another criticism is that the United States pays nearly the entire tab — in 2007 Mexico paid $190,000 to provide staffing for the program — and a big chunk of the money lands in the hands of a Mexican airline: AeroMexico.
CSI Aviation Services of Albuquerque, which has the federal contract, partners with AeroMexico, which operates the twice-daily flights out of Tucson International Airport, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
"Why can't we use U.S. carriers?" asked Glenn Spencer, president of the Cochise County-based American Border Patrol, a non-governmental organization that keeps tabs on the Border Patrol. "Probably Mexico won't let us. So, they are profiting off of our nonsense."
The discrepancy is likely explained by two factors, said Judith Gans, immigration-policy program manager at the University of Arizona's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.
"Who's paying reflects both the capacity to pay and the interest in stopping illegal immigration," Gans said.
Mexico wants to protect its citizens and keep them from dying in the desert but receives millions of dollars from remittance sent home from Mexicans living in the U.S. illegally, she said.
The program is as much about foreign policy and diplomacy as it is about immigration, Gans said.
"It's about trying to work with the Mexican government and do something cooperatively," Gans said.
The program is a way for both governments to "get off the hook" for bad policies that perpetuate illegal immigration, said Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, coordinator of the Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona, which studies border deaths. The program is nothing more than a small bandage on a much larger wound, she said.
"The repatriation program, both to the Mexico government and the American government, has been a way to respond to political pressure in each country regarding to the number of people who come across and the number of people who die," Rubio-Goldsmith said.
Thousands turn down offer
The program is voluntary, and every year thousands of illegal immigrants turn down the plane ticket home and hop on the bus back to Nogales, presumably to try again.
An average of 176 illegal immigrants per day have taken the flights home in the past four years. That accounts for only 20 percent of the Mexican illegal border crossers apprehended daily in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector in July-September over the past four years, agency figures show. Illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico cannot take the flights to Mexico City, nor can illegal immigrants with criminal records.
Those numbers don't take into account that many apprehended Mexicans live close to the border, meaning that a flight to Mexico City wouldn't help them, Nantel said. Officials would like to see more take the flights, but Nantel said that 20 percent for a voluntary program is actually pretty good.
Immigrants-rights advocates say the lack of participation demonstrates the ill-advised logic of the program.
"This really shows a shallow understanding of immigration," said Allen, of Border Action Network. "It's this notion that you just move people around, from point A to point B, and that will deter immigration. It underestimates the need for people to migrate. It's much more complex than just the shell game of these deterrent tactics."
Small portion of budget
U.S. officials consider it money well spent because it keeps those who take the flights safe, and, as Nantel says, there is no cost on human life.
"It saves the taxpayers money and addresses a very critical life-safety issue for individuals who are out in the desert in these very dangerous months," Nantel said.
Annual money spent on the program accounts for less than 1 percent of the Department of Homeland Security budget, Gans said. That said, the $51.6 million could have been more wisely spent on a program that targets the root causes of illegal immigration, she said.
The flights home do no harm and likely reduce the odds of dying for the people taking the flights, but the numbers clearly show it hasn't stopped the death toll, Gans said.
"All of these enforcement efforts are going to make a difference at the margin, but anytime the laws are so fundamentally out of alignment with the economic incentives and forces, the economic incentives are going to overwhelm the system," Gans said.
The money could have built as many as 20 miles of fencing on the border or bought camera systems that watch the border, both of which would be more effective deterrents, said Spencer, of the American Border Patrol. The deaths and continued traffic show that the flights don't stop illegal immigrants from trying again, he said.
The problem, he said, is that the Department of Homeland Security doesn't measure its own performance.
Following the first year of the program, the Mexican Foreign Ministry compiled a report on the program. It found that 10 percent of the 14,071 illegal immigrants who took the flights home were apprehended again in the program run, less than the 32 percent recidivism rate in the sector at the time.
Since that report, however, the Interior Repatriation Program has not been studied or analyzed. The Border Patrol doesn't release the current recidivism rate.
"It's a smoke screen," Spencer said. "It makes them appear as if they are doing something."
● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Phoenix businessman accused of funneling millions
Western Union in butcher shop handled more money than any of the 880 in Arizona
by Sean Holstege - Jul. 13, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Two of Arizona's busiest Western Union branches were not where you might expect: a small Mesa strip-mall store and the back of a west Phoenix butcher shop.
Both places lie in hardscrabble neighborhoods where stores offer cash advances, cheap tacos and low-dollar phone cards.
Bruce Dennis Love ran both stores. He lived in north Scottsdale and in a large $1.3 million home overlooking Paradise Valley from a luxury neighborhood on the side of a mountain park.
State investigators scoured the stores' transactions and interrogated the employees and reached the conclusion that almost all his customers were smugglers of illegal immigrants. The state shut down the stores in 2006.
Now, the state accuses Love, 50, and two partners of funneling $57 million to Mexican smugglers over four years. It's the biggest case of its kind ever brought anywhere on the border.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office seized Love's assets, including a $1.3 million home, more than a dozen other properties and eight cars. Love faces 80 counts of money laundering, conspiracy and participating in a criminal syndicate.
He has not entered a plea yet but is arguing in court that he is not mentally competent to stand trial. His partners, Maria Becerra and Rosa Contreras, pleaded guilty in May to lesser charges.
Here is how investigators allege the operation worked:
Court records lay out in detail how the cash-delivery operation was simple for smugglers and lucrative for Love.
His company, BMN Business Associates Inc., and its predecessor allowed him to build a multimillion-dollar mini-empire of Arizona, California and offshore ventures.
Moving the money
Illegal immigrants paid smugglers to transport them from Mexico to Phoenix. The immigrants were kept in drophouses while smugglers called relatives or friends in other states demanding a wire transfer of more money to release their captives.
Investigators say the smugglers picked up the cash at one of Love's Western Union shops, including a 16-by-16-foot, two-cashier room at the back of a Phoenix butchers' on West McDowell Road.
One suspected smuggler, for example, visited Love's Mesa store between February and June 2005 to collect 19 payments using nine different Social Security cards and addresses.
On June 6, he picked up two $1,000 payments wired from Georgia and one from Michigan. The next day, he picked up $1,000 from Michigan and $550 from Georgia.
The state says that store clerks, who typically earned about $8 an hour, took bribes ranging from $25 to $100 per transaction to overlook coyotes' incomplete or fake documentation. No clerks have been charged, but they have been interviewed by investigators and could be called as witnesses.
Putting profits to work
Love's Western Union shop in Phoenix handled more money than any of the 880 in Arizona. His two shops, between them, grossed up to $32,000 a month in commissions.
But Love's business operations extended well beyond the Western Union franchises.
State investigators have moved to seize the interests of Love, his family and his business associates, Becerra and Contreras, in 41 businesses, 26 bank accounts and 17 properties, worth a total of $42 million, according to prosecutors' court filings.
Property records show he owns $5.6 million in Arizona real estate. State and county records show that many of Love's businesses were registered to his house.
Investigators allege in court filings that he intermingled money among the Western Union shops, an offshore account, property investments and a charity. Love's holdings included:
• Two businesses registered in the Caribbean tax haven Nevis and another in Belize.
• A non-profit property insurance firm, listed on charity Web sites as eligible to receive donated cars.
• A one-third share of a California-based penis-enhancement business. It had contracts to sell pills in GNC and Wal-Mart stores, posting $6 million in sales last year.
• A Peoria car wash.
• Real-estate ventures, including a Litchfield business park and a company that flipped distressed properties.
In 2005, BMN opened a bank account in Chandler, according to subpoenaed records. Bank investigators grew suspicious of a large volume of transactions and learned the company was registered with Love's brother, not Love.
When Bruce Love tried to do business, the bank terminated the account. Bruce Love offered the bank manager $10,000, then $100,000, to reverse the decision, but the manager refused both times, state investigators testified
The crackdown
Love came under scrutiny when state investigators started piecing together how smugglers moved money through Western Union.
2002: The Arizona Financial Crimes Task Force began blocking Western Union wire transfers into the state. From data, investigators identified suspicious patterns and likely offenders.
2004-2005: Western Union turned over compliance documents to the state Attorney General's Office.
May 2005: Western Union conducted inspections of Love's franchise operation. It later sent him warning letters about certain practices.
February 2006: The state Attorney General's Office notified Western Union of a court order to monitor live transactions at some stores, including Love's.
March 2006: Western Union shut down Love's Phoenix and Mesa stores. Love later secured a wire-remitter contract with MoneyGram, but MoneyGram canceled the contract after BMN employees reported improper practices.
August 2006: The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions signed a consent order with Western Union shutting down Love's two stores and fining the company $3 million.
Jan. 18, 2008: Love was arrested after a grand jury issued an 80-count indictment.
Love's defense
Love's attorney argues he suffers from mental problems and was unaware of activities in his stores. He faces a mental competency hearing later this summer.
His attorney, Mark Dwyer of the Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, said Love was diagnosed with paranoia and depression and sought electroshock and surgical treatment.
"I think the man is seriously mentally ill and has been for around 15 years," Dwyer said.
Love was released on bond in January. In a recent court appearance, he sat pensively and silently as he fidgeted with a pen. He declined an interview, upon Dwyer's advice.
by Sean Holstege - Jul. 13, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Two of Arizona's busiest Western Union branches were not where you might expect: a small Mesa strip-mall store and the back of a west Phoenix butcher shop.
Both places lie in hardscrabble neighborhoods where stores offer cash advances, cheap tacos and low-dollar phone cards.
Bruce Dennis Love ran both stores. He lived in north Scottsdale and in a large $1.3 million home overlooking Paradise Valley from a luxury neighborhood on the side of a mountain park.
State investigators scoured the stores' transactions and interrogated the employees and reached the conclusion that almost all his customers were smugglers of illegal immigrants. The state shut down the stores in 2006.
Now, the state accuses Love, 50, and two partners of funneling $57 million to Mexican smugglers over four years. It's the biggest case of its kind ever brought anywhere on the border.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office seized Love's assets, including a $1.3 million home, more than a dozen other properties and eight cars. Love faces 80 counts of money laundering, conspiracy and participating in a criminal syndicate.
He has not entered a plea yet but is arguing in court that he is not mentally competent to stand trial. His partners, Maria Becerra and Rosa Contreras, pleaded guilty in May to lesser charges.
Here is how investigators allege the operation worked:
Court records lay out in detail how the cash-delivery operation was simple for smugglers and lucrative for Love.
His company, BMN Business Associates Inc., and its predecessor allowed him to build a multimillion-dollar mini-empire of Arizona, California and offshore ventures.
Moving the money
Illegal immigrants paid smugglers to transport them from Mexico to Phoenix. The immigrants were kept in drophouses while smugglers called relatives or friends in other states demanding a wire transfer of more money to release their captives.
Investigators say the smugglers picked up the cash at one of Love's Western Union shops, including a 16-by-16-foot, two-cashier room at the back of a Phoenix butchers' on West McDowell Road.
One suspected smuggler, for example, visited Love's Mesa store between February and June 2005 to collect 19 payments using nine different Social Security cards and addresses.
On June 6, he picked up two $1,000 payments wired from Georgia and one from Michigan. The next day, he picked up $1,000 from Michigan and $550 from Georgia.
The state says that store clerks, who typically earned about $8 an hour, took bribes ranging from $25 to $100 per transaction to overlook coyotes' incomplete or fake documentation. No clerks have been charged, but they have been interviewed by investigators and could be called as witnesses.
Putting profits to work
Love's Western Union shop in Phoenix handled more money than any of the 880 in Arizona. His two shops, between them, grossed up to $32,000 a month in commissions.
But Love's business operations extended well beyond the Western Union franchises.
State investigators have moved to seize the interests of Love, his family and his business associates, Becerra and Contreras, in 41 businesses, 26 bank accounts and 17 properties, worth a total of $42 million, according to prosecutors' court filings.
Property records show he owns $5.6 million in Arizona real estate. State and county records show that many of Love's businesses were registered to his house.
Investigators allege in court filings that he intermingled money among the Western Union shops, an offshore account, property investments and a charity. Love's holdings included:
• Two businesses registered in the Caribbean tax haven Nevis and another in Belize.
• A non-profit property insurance firm, listed on charity Web sites as eligible to receive donated cars.
• A one-third share of a California-based penis-enhancement business. It had contracts to sell pills in GNC and Wal-Mart stores, posting $6 million in sales last year.
• A Peoria car wash.
• Real-estate ventures, including a Litchfield business park and a company that flipped distressed properties.
In 2005, BMN opened a bank account in Chandler, according to subpoenaed records. Bank investigators grew suspicious of a large volume of transactions and learned the company was registered with Love's brother, not Love.
When Bruce Love tried to do business, the bank terminated the account. Bruce Love offered the bank manager $10,000, then $100,000, to reverse the decision, but the manager refused both times, state investigators testified
The crackdown
Love came under scrutiny when state investigators started piecing together how smugglers moved money through Western Union.
2002: The Arizona Financial Crimes Task Force began blocking Western Union wire transfers into the state. From data, investigators identified suspicious patterns and likely offenders.
2004-2005: Western Union turned over compliance documents to the state Attorney General's Office.
May 2005: Western Union conducted inspections of Love's franchise operation. It later sent him warning letters about certain practices.
February 2006: The state Attorney General's Office notified Western Union of a court order to monitor live transactions at some stores, including Love's.
March 2006: Western Union shut down Love's Phoenix and Mesa stores. Love later secured a wire-remitter contract with MoneyGram, but MoneyGram canceled the contract after BMN employees reported improper practices.
August 2006: The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions signed a consent order with Western Union shutting down Love's two stores and fining the company $3 million.
Jan. 18, 2008: Love was arrested after a grand jury issued an 80-count indictment.
Love's defense
Love's attorney argues he suffers from mental problems and was unaware of activities in his stores. He faces a mental competency hearing later this summer.
His attorney, Mark Dwyer of the Maricopa County Public Defender's Office, said Love was diagnosed with paranoia and depression and sought electroshock and surgical treatment.
"I think the man is seriously mentally ill and has been for around 15 years," Dwyer said.
Love was released on bond in January. In a recent court appearance, he sat pensively and silently as he fidgeted with a pen. He declined an interview, upon Dwyer's advice.
Human-smuggling rings from Mexico turning to new tactics
Human-smuggling rings from Mexico turning to new tactics
Arizona authorities say other states, feds must help squeeze cash pipeline
by Sean Holstege - Jul. 13, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Mexican human-smuggling rings are sidestepping Arizona's campaign to choke off their pipeline of illegal cash as they collect billions of dollars for sneaking illegal immigrants into the state.
Arizona investigators crack down, and the smugglers counter, shifting where and how they collect payments from illegal immigrants. The two sides repeat their sparring, like two grand masters mapping out their paths on a chessboard.
The cartels' shifting tactics show how the smuggling of people increasingly has become an organized business. Typically, a Mexican immigrant pays a smuggler $1,500 to $2,000 in fees, paying a portion up front to reach and then cross the Mexico border. Then a coyote takes the immigrant to a drophouse in Phoenix and holds him or her hostage until the final balance is wired from a friend or relative in the U.S.
Arizona investigators targeted payments wired to Western Union stores in the state and seized millions of dollars. But since then the smugglers have begun having the money transmitted to certain Western Unions in other states and Mexico. They also launder the cash through quickly closed checking accounts at large commercial banks and ferry bags of cash south across the border.
One way or another, at least $1.7 billion a year flows to Arizona's drophouse rings, federal and state investigators estimate. The money sustains illegal immigration, a big business characterized by gunbattles among smugglers and attacks upon immigrants. Every few months coyotes kill an immigrant.
The money maneuvers have frustrated Arizona investigators. Focusing on unscrupulous Western Union outlets, they had slashed wire transfers to smugglers from a peak of $500 million in 2002 to less than $50 million in 2006.
Western Union says it does everything it can to help. The company monitors its business thoroughly for money laundering and reports any problems to authorities, said Joseph Cachey III, the company's vice president for global compliance.
"We try to run a national anti-money-laundering program, and we feel it is significant and thorough," Cachey said.
The state continues to chisel away at the smugglers' network. Earlier this month, an Arizona Court of Appeals ruling allowed state investigators to open a new front in their campaign: sifting and seizing certain Western Union transactions to Sonora. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard hailed the ruling as "very important."
But he admits it's not enough. Arizona stands alone in combating illegal profits from smugglers. No other state, nor any federal agency, has systematically targeted coyote money. Goddard has asked other border states to copy Arizona's campaign, but none has.
He now is urging Mexican authorities to clamp down on smugglers and unscrupulous Western Union operators in Sonora, but it's unknown how far any cooperation will go.
Targeting the cash
Arizona's crackdown began in 2001, when undercover agents watched coyotes walk out of Western Union outlets in the state with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Often, they didn't bring valid ID to get cash and picked up payments wired to dozens of illegal immigrants.
As investigators tightened the net, coyotes starting bringing illegal immigrants to some Western Union shops to sign for the cash in smaller amounts. Store clerks took bribes and kept loose records, investigators testified.
Over the next five years, investigators tracked wired money and chased the evidence that emerged. Detectives pieced together a picture of drophouses, coyotes and smuggling rings. They collected troves of smuggling lists, interrogated thousands of immigrants and coyotes and conducted undercover stings of coyotes and Western Unions in Arizona. All the evidence pointed in the same direction: Vast amounts were being laundered.
The effort led to the largest money-laundering case of its kind. In January a grand jury indicted Bruce Dennis Love, a Phoenix-area Western Union franchisee, on money-laundering and other charges. Love has not entered a plea, pending a ruling on whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.
Statewide, about 5 percent of Western Union outlets were responsible for 80 percent of the most suspicious transactions, investigators with the state financial-crimes task force say. Transaction records and follow-up investigations show that two- to three-dozen stores depended on the coyote business.
"We haven't finished (prosecuting) the highly corrupt Western Union agents," said Cameron Holmes, senior litigation counsel at the Attorney General's Office.
Sonoran connection
In spring 2006, state investigators studied a two-month sample of Western Union transfers from U.S. states to Sonora. They counted $28 million from the same 28 states that had previously wired money to coyotes in Arizona. Money went to Sonora from the same places, in the same amounts and proportions as they had in Arizona.
The transfers showed that families in, say, New York or Atlanta paid Arizona coyotes the way they always had but sent the money farther south.
Further evidence included:
• Most transactions were posted in a handful of small smuggling towns, such as Caborca, Altar and Cananea. A few individuals picked up thousands of dollars in multiple transactions every day. One man picked up $194,000 in two months.
• Money transmissions to Sonoran Western Unions fluctuated with the smuggling season, spiking in spring and late fall, just as they had in Arizona.
• Sonora, a smuggling haven for decades, has 100 Western Union outlets, more than Mexico City, which is four times as populous. Investigators said the imbalance showed Sonoran stores were collecting coyote money rather than legal remittances.
• In one case, investigators used logbook notes and transaction records to link the murder of an immigrant in a Phoenix drophouse to a Western Union branch in Caborca. He was shot in the head, testicles and midriff while complaining on the phone to his brother about being extorted.
The Caborca branch sits at the back of a store that sells appliances and motorcycles. Investigators said it cleared 20 times the amount as the next busiest Western Union in Sonora.
Later in 2006, Arizona investigators got a warrant to seize suspicious transactions from U.S. states to Sonora.
Western Union filed an emergency motion in court to halt the seizures, arguing that data search was too broad and would interfere with the privacy of people who legitimately wire money.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge agreed, but on July 1 the state Court of Appeals overturned his ruling, saying Arizona could search the data and intercept suspicious transactions. The court said the evidence linked the money in Sonora to crimes in Arizona.
Western Union has not yet said whether it will appeal.
Expanding to other states
Mexican smuggling cartels have countered Arizona's pursuit of Sonora transactions by spreading the risk: They have moved drophouse operations and wired payment of smuggling fees to other states, including Nevada.
In Las Vegas, patrol officers have been stopping more vans full of illegal immigrants on the highways leading to the city, Arizona Department of Public Service officials said.
Immigrants and coyotes have told Arizona investigators that increasingly people are ordered to send money to Western Union stores in the Las Vegas area. Investigators sought but did not receive court permission to seize records of those transactions, so it's not known how much Arizona money has shifted north.
Likewise, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say an unknown amount of money has shifted to California and New Mexico. Goddard recently asked his counterparts in bordering states to launch parallel investigations, but none has. He did not provide details about any talks with counterparts in other states, and officials in Texas, California and Nevada declined comment to The Arizona Republic.
The New Mexico Attorney General's Office said it has found only small volumes of money wiring.
Federal agencies have limited their actions to administrative fines of Western Union and smaller-scale seizures of coyote money.
Western Union is regulated by the USA Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and state laws. Store agents are required to file reports of suspicious activity, log withdrawals larger than $2,000 and document efforts to split a single payment into smaller transactions.
In 2003, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network determined that "Western Union's failures to file suspicious activity reports were willful" and fined the company $3 million.
Regulators in California and New York also found Western Union's methods lacking and fined the company.
Using bank accounts
In more recent cases, evidence has emerged that coyotes are increasingly smuggling money through large commercial banks.
Historically, criminal organizations shied away from banks because reporting requirements are stricter and better enforced.
Since Arizona's crackdown on wire remitters, cartels have turned to checking accounts, suspects and extortion victims told investigators.
A coyote will set up numerous checking accounts with small amounts of cash. When relatives are ready to pay the smuggling fee for an illegal immigrant, coyotes give them the account number and tell them to deposit cash in a drive-through teller. When the money clears, the immigrant is released.
As quickly as possible, money launderers then withdraw the money. It's a high-volume, quick-turnaround operation that draws suspicion from bank security teams, but coyotes usually shut down the accounts after a couple of months, before bankers catch on.
Western Union at center
Western Union says it has been a cooperative partner in cracking down on money laundering.
Cachey, the vice president for global compliance, touted the company's efforts to train its 335,000 franchise agents on how to spot laundering and how to build a better compliance program. He added that regulators have to better warn money-wire firms about emerging risks.
While Arizona presents unique challenges, Cachey said, Western Union tracks money-laundering attempts around the globe, including to terrorist organizations.
Still, he says the company has cooperated with Arizona, and it's helped. He cites the Bruce Love case.
"We reported the problems to the government and terminated our relationship with him," Cachey said.
"We have programs in Sonora and all along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for suspicious patterns of activity so we can deal with that," Cachey said.
Goddard and state investigators take a dimmer view of Western Union's role.
In 2006, the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions found Western Union agents failed to identify 28 customers and had incomplete records for 47 more. The state fined Western Union $3 million and ordered it to shut down eight stores, including two run by Bruce Love, and put on probation six more. Regulators found no willful or intentional wrongdoing.
"It is troubling to me that a major commercial enterprise can facilitate criminal activity the way the money transmitters do," Goddard said. "A greater effort is needed from them to clear up their activities. I've been angry for the last four years."
Goddard agrees with ICE and state investigators that only extensive cooperation beyond Arizona can put another dent in human smugglers' money laundering. They all say that without collaboration, it's getting harder to follow the hidden cash in the never-ending battle of wits and tactics between smugglers and law officers.
"We are the rock in the stream, not the dam," Goddard said of Arizona's enforcement. "We need to get to the dam."
Arizona authorities say other states, feds must help squeeze cash pipeline
by Sean Holstege - Jul. 13, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Mexican human-smuggling rings are sidestepping Arizona's campaign to choke off their pipeline of illegal cash as they collect billions of dollars for sneaking illegal immigrants into the state.
Arizona investigators crack down, and the smugglers counter, shifting where and how they collect payments from illegal immigrants. The two sides repeat their sparring, like two grand masters mapping out their paths on a chessboard.
The cartels' shifting tactics show how the smuggling of people increasingly has become an organized business. Typically, a Mexican immigrant pays a smuggler $1,500 to $2,000 in fees, paying a portion up front to reach and then cross the Mexico border. Then a coyote takes the immigrant to a drophouse in Phoenix and holds him or her hostage until the final balance is wired from a friend or relative in the U.S.
Arizona investigators targeted payments wired to Western Union stores in the state and seized millions of dollars. But since then the smugglers have begun having the money transmitted to certain Western Unions in other states and Mexico. They also launder the cash through quickly closed checking accounts at large commercial banks and ferry bags of cash south across the border.
One way or another, at least $1.7 billion a year flows to Arizona's drophouse rings, federal and state investigators estimate. The money sustains illegal immigration, a big business characterized by gunbattles among smugglers and attacks upon immigrants. Every few months coyotes kill an immigrant.
The money maneuvers have frustrated Arizona investigators. Focusing on unscrupulous Western Union outlets, they had slashed wire transfers to smugglers from a peak of $500 million in 2002 to less than $50 million in 2006.
Western Union says it does everything it can to help. The company monitors its business thoroughly for money laundering and reports any problems to authorities, said Joseph Cachey III, the company's vice president for global compliance.
"We try to run a national anti-money-laundering program, and we feel it is significant and thorough," Cachey said.
The state continues to chisel away at the smugglers' network. Earlier this month, an Arizona Court of Appeals ruling allowed state investigators to open a new front in their campaign: sifting and seizing certain Western Union transactions to Sonora. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard hailed the ruling as "very important."
But he admits it's not enough. Arizona stands alone in combating illegal profits from smugglers. No other state, nor any federal agency, has systematically targeted coyote money. Goddard has asked other border states to copy Arizona's campaign, but none has.
He now is urging Mexican authorities to clamp down on smugglers and unscrupulous Western Union operators in Sonora, but it's unknown how far any cooperation will go.
Targeting the cash
Arizona's crackdown began in 2001, when undercover agents watched coyotes walk out of Western Union outlets in the state with tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Often, they didn't bring valid ID to get cash and picked up payments wired to dozens of illegal immigrants.
As investigators tightened the net, coyotes starting bringing illegal immigrants to some Western Union shops to sign for the cash in smaller amounts. Store clerks took bribes and kept loose records, investigators testified.
Over the next five years, investigators tracked wired money and chased the evidence that emerged. Detectives pieced together a picture of drophouses, coyotes and smuggling rings. They collected troves of smuggling lists, interrogated thousands of immigrants and coyotes and conducted undercover stings of coyotes and Western Unions in Arizona. All the evidence pointed in the same direction: Vast amounts were being laundered.
The effort led to the largest money-laundering case of its kind. In January a grand jury indicted Bruce Dennis Love, a Phoenix-area Western Union franchisee, on money-laundering and other charges. Love has not entered a plea, pending a ruling on whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.
Statewide, about 5 percent of Western Union outlets were responsible for 80 percent of the most suspicious transactions, investigators with the state financial-crimes task force say. Transaction records and follow-up investigations show that two- to three-dozen stores depended on the coyote business.
"We haven't finished (prosecuting) the highly corrupt Western Union agents," said Cameron Holmes, senior litigation counsel at the Attorney General's Office.
Sonoran connection
In spring 2006, state investigators studied a two-month sample of Western Union transfers from U.S. states to Sonora. They counted $28 million from the same 28 states that had previously wired money to coyotes in Arizona. Money went to Sonora from the same places, in the same amounts and proportions as they had in Arizona.
The transfers showed that families in, say, New York or Atlanta paid Arizona coyotes the way they always had but sent the money farther south.
Further evidence included:
• Most transactions were posted in a handful of small smuggling towns, such as Caborca, Altar and Cananea. A few individuals picked up thousands of dollars in multiple transactions every day. One man picked up $194,000 in two months.
• Money transmissions to Sonoran Western Unions fluctuated with the smuggling season, spiking in spring and late fall, just as they had in Arizona.
• Sonora, a smuggling haven for decades, has 100 Western Union outlets, more than Mexico City, which is four times as populous. Investigators said the imbalance showed Sonoran stores were collecting coyote money rather than legal remittances.
• In one case, investigators used logbook notes and transaction records to link the murder of an immigrant in a Phoenix drophouse to a Western Union branch in Caborca. He was shot in the head, testicles and midriff while complaining on the phone to his brother about being extorted.
The Caborca branch sits at the back of a store that sells appliances and motorcycles. Investigators said it cleared 20 times the amount as the next busiest Western Union in Sonora.
Later in 2006, Arizona investigators got a warrant to seize suspicious transactions from U.S. states to Sonora.
Western Union filed an emergency motion in court to halt the seizures, arguing that data search was too broad and would interfere with the privacy of people who legitimately wire money.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge agreed, but on July 1 the state Court of Appeals overturned his ruling, saying Arizona could search the data and intercept suspicious transactions. The court said the evidence linked the money in Sonora to crimes in Arizona.
Western Union has not yet said whether it will appeal.
Expanding to other states
Mexican smuggling cartels have countered Arizona's pursuit of Sonora transactions by spreading the risk: They have moved drophouse operations and wired payment of smuggling fees to other states, including Nevada.
In Las Vegas, patrol officers have been stopping more vans full of illegal immigrants on the highways leading to the city, Arizona Department of Public Service officials said.
Immigrants and coyotes have told Arizona investigators that increasingly people are ordered to send money to Western Union stores in the Las Vegas area. Investigators sought but did not receive court permission to seize records of those transactions, so it's not known how much Arizona money has shifted north.
Likewise, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say an unknown amount of money has shifted to California and New Mexico. Goddard recently asked his counterparts in bordering states to launch parallel investigations, but none has. He did not provide details about any talks with counterparts in other states, and officials in Texas, California and Nevada declined comment to The Arizona Republic.
The New Mexico Attorney General's Office said it has found only small volumes of money wiring.
Federal agencies have limited their actions to administrative fines of Western Union and smaller-scale seizures of coyote money.
Western Union is regulated by the USA Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and state laws. Store agents are required to file reports of suspicious activity, log withdrawals larger than $2,000 and document efforts to split a single payment into smaller transactions.
In 2003, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network determined that "Western Union's failures to file suspicious activity reports were willful" and fined the company $3 million.
Regulators in California and New York also found Western Union's methods lacking and fined the company.
Using bank accounts
In more recent cases, evidence has emerged that coyotes are increasingly smuggling money through large commercial banks.
Historically, criminal organizations shied away from banks because reporting requirements are stricter and better enforced.
Since Arizona's crackdown on wire remitters, cartels have turned to checking accounts, suspects and extortion victims told investigators.
A coyote will set up numerous checking accounts with small amounts of cash. When relatives are ready to pay the smuggling fee for an illegal immigrant, coyotes give them the account number and tell them to deposit cash in a drive-through teller. When the money clears, the immigrant is released.
As quickly as possible, money launderers then withdraw the money. It's a high-volume, quick-turnaround operation that draws suspicion from bank security teams, but coyotes usually shut down the accounts after a couple of months, before bankers catch on.
Western Union at center
Western Union says it has been a cooperative partner in cracking down on money laundering.
Cachey, the vice president for global compliance, touted the company's efforts to train its 335,000 franchise agents on how to spot laundering and how to build a better compliance program. He added that regulators have to better warn money-wire firms about emerging risks.
While Arizona presents unique challenges, Cachey said, Western Union tracks money-laundering attempts around the globe, including to terrorist organizations.
Still, he says the company has cooperated with Arizona, and it's helped. He cites the Bruce Love case.
"We reported the problems to the government and terminated our relationship with him," Cachey said.
"We have programs in Sonora and all along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for suspicious patterns of activity so we can deal with that," Cachey said.
Goddard and state investigators take a dimmer view of Western Union's role.
In 2006, the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions found Western Union agents failed to identify 28 customers and had incomplete records for 47 more. The state fined Western Union $3 million and ordered it to shut down eight stores, including two run by Bruce Love, and put on probation six more. Regulators found no willful or intentional wrongdoing.
"It is troubling to me that a major commercial enterprise can facilitate criminal activity the way the money transmitters do," Goddard said. "A greater effort is needed from them to clear up their activities. I've been angry for the last four years."
Goddard agrees with ICE and state investigators that only extensive cooperation beyond Arizona can put another dent in human smugglers' money laundering. They all say that without collaboration, it's getting harder to follow the hidden cash in the never-ending battle of wits and tactics between smugglers and law officers.
"We are the rock in the stream, not the dam," Goddard said of Arizona's enforcement. "We need to get to the dam."
Friday, July 4, 2008
Yuma AZ Border Patrol seizes 940 pounds of pot
Border Patrol seizes 940 pounds of pot
July 4, 2008
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- The U.S. Border Patrol says they've seized 940 pounds of marijuana after an agent monitoring a camera near Yuma spotted men emerging from a drainage pipe.
The agent called in a helicopter and other agents, who tracked footprints from the Colorado River to the pipe. They found 26 bundles of pot inside the pipe late Wednesday.
The smugglers apparently escaped back to Mexico.
July 4, 2008
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- The U.S. Border Patrol says they've seized 940 pounds of marijuana after an agent monitoring a camera near Yuma spotted men emerging from a drainage pipe.
The agent called in a helicopter and other agents, who tracked footprints from the Colorado River to the pipe. They found 26 bundles of pot inside the pipe late Wednesday.
The smugglers apparently escaped back to Mexico.
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