SAN DIEGO — Raul Villarreal was long a public face of the Border Patrol, frequently appearing on television news as an agency spokesman and acting as a dangerous human smuggler in a public-service announcement intended to warn Mexicans about the dangers of entering the United States illegally.
Prosecutors contend now that he knew the smuggler’s role well because he was one.
Raul and his older brother and fellow former agent, Fidel, are accused of smuggling hundreds of migrants in Border Patrol vehicles. Federal prosecutors say the brothers were tipped they were under investigation in June 2006, prompting them to flee to Mexico.
Shortly after settling in Tijuana, a district police commander in the Mexican border city who allegedly shuttled the Villarreals’ customers in squad cars was killed in a hail of about 200 bullets. The brothers were arrested in Tijuana in October 2008 — more than two years after abruptly quitting the Border Patrol — and extradited to the United States to face charges of human smuggling, witness tampering and bribery.
The case, which goes to trial next month in San Diego, is one of the highest-profile corruption cases to sting the Border Patrol since it went on a hiring spree during the past decade. The brothers, in their early 40s, have pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The Border Patrol has suffered a string of such embarrassments since doubling its size over the past seven years to more than 21,000 agents. Its national strategy released last month emphasizes that even one misguided agent is unacceptable and outlines steps to combat corruption.
Criminal indictments against employees of Customs and Border Protection — which oversees Border Patrol agents and other border-security officials — have increased each of the past four years to 60 in fiscal 2011, according to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general. There have been 232 indictments from October 2007 through April 2012.
The investigation against the Villarreal brothers began in May 2005 with an informant’s tip to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Investigators installed cameras on poles where migrants were dropped off, planted undercover recording devices, put tracking instruments on Border Patrol vehicles and followed a smuggling load by airplane.
The prosecution also relies on accounts of alleged accomplices and migrants who entered the United States illegally, including some who identified Fidel Villareal in photographs. One 24-year-old Brazilian woman said she paid $12,000 to be taken across the border in “a police car.”
David Nick, Raul Villareal’s attorney, hinted at his defense in a court filing that said the prosecution hinges on “unreliable witnesses who have a strong motive to lie.”
Fidel’s attorney, Zenia Gilg, wrote that the prosecution rests largely on two alleged accomplices who were promised leniency for testifying and “inconsistent statements” from migrants.
