Toward the end of September, Ramon Antonio Monreal Rodriguez obtained $650,000 worth of cocaine from smugglers along the Arizona border. The 32-year-old Tucsonian made two exchanges of drugs and money over the course of two nights, and ensured 41 kilos of coke got into the US from Mexico without any problems.
Monreal and the traffickers met up at a prearranged spot in a patch of desert near the San Gabriel Gate. Monreal knew the area well. After all, he had been working in the vicinity since he joined the US Border Patrol a decade earlier.
The FBI, which had Monreal under surveillance, arrested him on Sept. 25; Monreal resigned from his role as an agent later that day. According to federal court documents, he was on duty and driving an official Border Patrol vehicle when he made both exchanges and received $66,230 and three kilos for his trouble. Monreal, whose arrest was first reported by Curt Prendergast of the Arizona Daily Star, is also facing weapons charges for allegedly buying guns illegally for two other people.
Records obtained by the Project on Government Oversight reveal that 13 US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees have been arrested in the past two years; Monreal is the…
