Vehicle Search for Kidnaped Agent at Border

U.S. Customs and Immigration agents along the international border from here to Texas were inspecting the passenger compartment and trunk of every vehicle coming into the United States Friday in search of a kidnaped U.S. drug enforcement agent who authorities believe may be brought across the border by his abductors.

The exhaustive search of vehicles caused traffic at the border crossing here to be delayed nearly three hours Friday night, compared to the normal 45-minute to one-hour wait on Friday nights.

Jerry Martin, the assistant district director for the U.S. Customs Service in San Diego, said his agents, as well as inspectors with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were acting at the request of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“We got a call just past 2 p.m. from our headquarters office, advising us to cooperate with the drug enforcement agents in the exam of all vehicles and aircraft coming into the United States from Mexico, to look for the kidnaped agent,” Martin said. “We were given flyers with the man’s picture.”

The object of the search is Enrique S. Camarena, an 11-year veteran of the DEA, who was believed to have been abducted Feb. 7 by drug traffickers in Guadalajara, Mexico. The DEA said witnesses saw four armed men grab Camarena and throw him into a car. Authorities said it is the first suspected kidnaping of a DEA agent in Mexico.

DEA spokesman Johnny Granados in Los Angeles said Friday night that he was unaware of the border search operation, and DEA officials in San Diego could not be reached for comment.

But Jerome Hollandar, a public affairs officer for the Customs Service’s Pacific division, said the search was ordered “at the national level.”