Ex-Customs Agent Gets 17 Years in Drug Bribes

A former U.S. Customs Service inspector was sentenced to 17 years in prison and fined $1.7 million Monday for taking bribes to wave cars and trucks loaded with marijuana across the U.S. border at San Ysidro.

Federal prosecutors said the jail term and fine, imposed by U.S. District Judge Rudi M. Brewster, were the stiffest penalties in memory stemming from an official corruption case.

The former inspector, Jose Angel Barron, 41, had earned about $13,000 a year as a part-time inspector at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the busiest U.S.-Mexico border crossing. He also earned $28,000 a year in his full-time position as a San Diego city park manager until his arrest in May, 1987, by Customs internal affairs investigators.

Agents found and seized $65,000 in cash in Barron’s house in San Diego and another $580,000 in cash at his mother’s home. Barron, who has been in custody since his arrest, pleaded guilty in May to charges of official corruption, possession of more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana and illegal money laundering. He is believed to have taken $1 million in bribes, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip L. Halpern.

During the year before his arrest, Barron waved between 60 and 70 loads of marijuana over the border and was a major conduit in the vast Francisco Javier Caro-Payan marijuana smuggling operation, which was responsible for smuggling more than 100 tons of marijuana into the United States. Barron alone waved thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border, prosecutors said. Caro-Payan and some others involved in his operation were arrested several months later and most are awaiting trial in San Diego.

Acting on a tip, Customs investigators and the U.S. attorney’s office began surveillance of Barron in his station at the border crossing and got court permission to electronically monitor the inspector’s booth, Halpern said.

Barron and some accomplices “had a procedure set up where somebody on a hill with binoculars would signal to the drivers which booth he was working at,” Halpern said. “He was waving the cars through.” The vehicles included cars, vans and pickup trucks, all with their windows blacked out.

After a three-month probe, investigators arrested Barron one day after they saw him wave two pickup trucks with camper shells and blacked-out windows through the border gate and into the United States without inspecting them or questioning the drivers.

“We’re very pleased that such a big sentence was imposed,” Halpern said. “It’s an important message to be delivered to the community that this type of behavior will not be tolerated by this office.”