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Some corrupt employees have very sticky fingers, CBP head says

  • By FCW Staff
  • Jun 14, 2011
More than 125 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) employees have been arrested or indicted for smuggling illegal aliens or drugs, conspiracy, and laundering money during the past seven years, CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin has testified, Jordy Yager reports in The Hill.

One CPB agent tried to smuggle 100 kilos of marijuana across a border and another officer allegedly tried to swindle a Korean citizen out of $220,000 for a fake school’s computer program, Bersin recently told a Senate subcommittee, The Hill said. 

CPB's inspector general has more than 600 open investigations of employees, and the vast majority stem from allegations of corruption or suspicious behavior, the article continued.

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Reader comments

Tue, Jun 21, 2011 Dave

What's worse is that it's actually 600 investigations for 20,700 (not 43,600) in the CBP. So, that's nearly 3% or 1 in 34.5, but only if each investigation only targets a single agent.

Tue, Jun 21, 2011 Dave

When one in seventy people (1/70 = 1.4%)sworn to uphold the law is, instead, breaking it, we have a serious problem. If we were talking about one in a thousand, I'd say it was rare. 1-in-70 is rife with corruption.

Thu, Jun 16, 2011 WOR

Well, the comments over at The Hill are a little outrageous. I think they need to work dobletime to root out bad employees, but lets see... I find "It has a workforce of more than 43,600 sworn federal agents and officers." 600/43000 == 1.4% Well, it should be lower, but it doesn't seem to add up to "rife with corruption". Stings, monitoring, and no tolerance.

Wed, Jun 15, 2011 Richmond, VA

So how do the honest and trustworthy employees survive the corruption mentality that could get an upstanding employee fired or stalemated for promotion?

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