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Phoenix – A mother and daughter, both wanted in Florida on charges of racketeering, were apprehended by alert U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport Wednesday night. While screening passengers arriving from Mexico City, CBP officers examined documents belonging to 24-year-old Silvana Theurell-Portillo. While asking routine questions of Theurell-Portillo, the officers queried her name in their systems and discovered that she was a fugitive, wanted in St. Lucie County, Fla. on gambling and racketeering charges. During questioning of her mother, 65-year-old Marina Portillo, CBP officers discovered that she also was wanted on similar charges in...

A high-ranking official with the Detroit office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (“ICE”), formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and four other metro-Detroit men were indicted by a federal Grand Jury with multiple counts of bribery, conspiracy and extortion, United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy announced today. U.S. Attorney Murphy was joined in the announcement by Thomas M. Frost, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago, Illinois office of the Department of Homeland Security - Office of Inspector General, and Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit, Michigan, office of the Federal...

PORT ANGELES - A car carrying four men reportedly sped through the U.S. Customs port of entry off the ferry from Victoria on Wednesday night. The Port Angeles Police Department received a report through the PenCom dispatch center of the car failing to stop for inspection. The car disembarked off the MV Coho at about 9:20 p.m. after the day's last southbound sailing. It reportedly raced past the checkpoint so quickly that nobody could determine a license plate number or even the plates' jurisdiction. The car turned left - or eastbound - onto Railroad Avenue from the port of entry,...

A former U.S. Customs supervisor, who authorities say helped smuggle tens of thousands of kilos of cocaine through Newark's seaport and airport, was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison yesterday in a drug case the judge called the worst he has ever seen involving a government official. In imposing sentence on Jorge Reyeros, U.S. District Judge William Bassler said anyone who misuses their office "in such a heinous way has to suffer the consequences." Bassler, sitting in Newark, also sentenced Reyeros' older brother, Juan, to nearly 19 years in prison for helping in the crime. While a federal...

MANATEE - Getting shoved around, handcuffed, manhandled and witnessing a police beating - these are the memories two young hurricane relief workers from Manatee County say they took away from Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Saturday night. After about a month of volunteer work in areas hit hard by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Manatee County residents Calvin Briles and Mike Monaghan decided to take it easy in the Big Easy for an evening. The two men, program consultants for the Volunteer Center of Manatee County, had spent the day buying chain saws and delivering them to volunteer reception centers...

McALLEN, Texas - A senior U.S. Customs inspector pleaded guilty Tuesday to money laundering and conspiring to smuggle drugs from Mexico, federal prosecutors said. Lizandro Martinez, 44, was paid to let a series of trucks containing thousands of pounds of marijuana pass over the Progreso International Bridge without inspection for more than 2 1/2 years beginning in 2002, according to court documents. As part of a plea agreement, Martinez will resign and forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars in vehicles and real estate bought with the laundered money. Roberto Dominguez, 44, of Hildalgo, was also convicted Tuesday of similar charges...

Is a U.S. Customs informant responsible for the death of two U.S. citizens? And was he allowed to get away with it because agents badly wanted to get his drug boss? According to dozens of pages of government documents, that is exactly what happened. ABC-7 uses exclusive information to outline a bloody drug tale in which murder plays a major role. El Paso Police will not yet confirm what ABC-7 has already uncovered. The cold-blooded killing outside the Whataburger at Paisano and Piedras, earlier this year, is directly related to a U.S. Customs informant working closely with the Vicente Carrlllo...

WASHINGTON – In an unusual move, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has ordered inspectors at America's largest airports to examine all travelers of Pakistani descent – including U.S. citizens – for minor injuries such as "rope burns," "unusual bruises" and "scars" possibly suffered while training in terrorist camps in that ally Muslim country, according to internal U.S. documents obtained exclusively by WorldNetDaily. A two-page "action" bulletin, labeled "For Official Use Only," warns that recent intelligence gathered in Pakistan and elsewhere indicates that individuals traveling to train at terrorist camps in Pakistan may be planning to carry out terrorist activities within...

Pedophiles are out there and they're online By Michelle Dynes rep2@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - Last year, six computers in the Cheyenne area were confiscated because of child pornography. "It is actually here in our area," Deputy Raymond Nelson of the Laramie County Sheriff's Department said. Nelson cited a recent case where a Cheyenne man was convicted Thursday of soliciting sex from a minor he met on the Internet. But that 12-year-old girl was actually an agent for the Division of Criminal Investigation. Nelson participated in an Internet safety presentation Monday to teach parents how to keep...

EL PASO - A Defense Department plan to pull 450 National Guard troops away from inspection duties along the border is sparking an outcry among critics who fear it will lower the nation's defenses against terrorism.Some of the Guard troops have been on the job for more than 10 years and were trained to identify suspicious vehicles with hidden compartments that could conceal weapons. Under a plan approved in February by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the new customs agency will hire inspectors and train them to replace the Guard troops. "This proposal would pull out the National Guard...

BANGOR, Maine - The U.S. Customs Service is planning to close eight private border crossings in Maine that have been open since the early 1970s or longer. Plans also call for limiting access through four other ports staffed by customs agents. Earlier this week, Sen. Susan Collins asked customs officials to delay the closings from January until May to avoid serious problems for the state's lumber industry. "There's a lot of commerce there and a lot of family livelihoods at stake," said Elizabeth Swain, a Portland consultant who is representing the Maine Border Issues Task Force, a group of Maine...

POHENEGAMOOK, Quebec — Michel Jalbert never imagined that his usual excursion to gas up at the cheapest place in town would land him in a Maine prison for five weeks and create an international incident. Even now, after U.S. officials finally released Jalbert on $5,000 bail and as he awaits his trial in U.S. District Court early next year, the spirit of cooperation that forms the social and economic fabric of this Canadian border town remains frayed. People who once thought they had written permission to cross briefly into Maine to buy gasoline without visiting U.S. Customs now worry about...

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Ten Americans and six foreigners were charged Friday with taking sexually explicit photographs of their own children or children in their care and sending them over the Internet to an international child pornography ring, the U.S. Customs Service said. Forty-five children, including 37 in the United States, were victims and have been removed from the care of those indicted, Customs officials said. Most of them are in the custody of another parent or relative. The defendants include nine people from seven states who were indicted in Fresno, Calif., along with six residents of Denmark, Switzerland and the...

U.S. Customs Was Looking For Evidence of Terror FundingFeds Searched Offices Of Seven McKinney DonorsBy David Freddoso Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D.-Ga.) took $5,500 in campaign contributions in 2001 from seven donors whose organizations’ offices were recently searched by federal agents as part of an effort to collect information about terrorist groups. Among these donors was Abdurahman Alamoudi, an avowed supporter of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Alamoudi gave McKinney $2,000 on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) report. Another three of the seven donors’ contributions were also received on that date.Each of the seven McKinney...