Embattled Chief of Customs to Retire

Embattled U.S. Customs chief George Weise has announced that he will step down from the beleaguered agency that has been buffeted by corruption investigations and congressional critics who say controls against drug smuggling are being sacrificed to trade goals.

Customs spokeswoman Layne Latham said Weise, who has been commissioner since 1993, decided to retire after 25 years in government service to pursue opportunities in the private sector. A customs statement said he would leave this summer.

Under Weise’s stewardship, the agency has come under pressure to increase cocaine seizures, which had declined so sharply--as Southwest border truck traffic increased--that U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called for his replacement in 1995.

Weise’s congressional critics were irked recently that customs supervisor Art Gilbert was made the supervising inspector of the San Ysidro port, the world’s largest land border crossing. Gilbert had been the subject of a federal Border Corruption Task Force investigation, though no charges were filed against him.

Customs recently took administrative action against Gilbert over an unrelated matter, according to customs spokesman Pat Jones.

Jones could not say if Gilbert was still working at the agency, but said he believed he had been removed from his post. U.S. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) said he had been told by Weise that Gilbert had been dismissed.

Gilbert’s boss, San Ysidro port director Jerry Martin, was transferred, Jones said. He offered no details.

The criticism that plagued Weise’s tenure underscores the way Southwest border customs posts have been pushed, often with insufficient preparation and infrastructure, to the front lines of the war against drugs, observers said.

The dangers that have increasingly arisen came to life at the Calexico border crossing Thursday morning when a gunman shot two U.S. Customs inspectors.

The assailant, a suspected drug trafficker, had been pulled over and taken to a search room where he pulled out a gun, a customs official said. He shot one customs inspector in the chest and a second three times in the face and neck, the official said.

One of the wounded inspectors managed to shoot the assailant to death. Both of the U.S. inspectors were in stable condition Thursday.

U.S. officials estimate that 70 percent of the illegal drugs that enter the United States are shipped from Mexico, pressuring customs border officials to weed out drugs from cargo traffic that increased dramatically in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

While hundreds of new inspectors and agents have been sent to the Southwest border in recent years to staff an anti-drug effort known as Operation Hard Line, Washington needs to continue to reinforce the area, officials say.

“We need more people down there and more technology. Our budget hasn’t really grown very much in the last three years, but the traffic and responsibilities have,” Jones said. “If you add to that the power of some of these drug smuggling organizations, it makes our responsibilities even greater.”

It also increases the temptations for U.S. officers on the front lines, several of whom have been prosecuted in recent years for drug-related malfeasance by the Border Corruption Task Force. One of them, former customs inspector Francisco Mejia, was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine in 1996, a spokesman of the San Diego U.S. attorney’s office said. He is to be sentenced Monday.

Rep. Rangel said he mentioned his concerns about border corruption in a telephone conversation with Weise on Tuesday, and told him he had lingering questions about the Justice Department’s probe that found no criminal wrongdoing by Gilbert.

Rangel said Weise told him that Gilbert had been dismissed, but that privacy laws prevented him from telling the reason behind the administrative action against him.

“I’m very concerned about corruption on both sides of the border and the amount of drugs coming from Mexico,” Rangel said. “I’m asking for the reports. . . . They say they can’t reveal why [Gilbert] was fired.”

The task force investigation into Gilbert and several other customs officials was triggered by an Oct. 3, 1990, incident reported by customs inspector Jeffrey Weitzman.

Weitzman said his drug-sniffing dog had grown excited over a truck owned by Hidro Gas de Juarez, according to federal officials. Weitzman said he wanted to search the truck but the supervisor on duty objected. After arguing, Weitzman asked to weigh the truck and found it 7,000 pounds overweight.

A search of the tanker revealed a record 8,705-pound cache of cocaine, according to the task force. To the ire of another inspector at the scene, the driver was allowed to return to Mexico. A few days later, the driver was found dead in a car trunk in Mexico.

A congressional staffer said the Border Corruption Task Force, which declined to prosecute, failed to answer lingering questions over the issue.

“You do something about it. You don’t just shove it under the rug and claim a clean bill of health,” a congressional source said.