Corruption among the Border Patrol

Alan Bersin said in a Congressional hearing today that Mexican gangs go crazy corrupting American officials:

Mexican drug cartels have used cash and sexual favors as tools to corrupt U.S. border and customs agents, an inspector general investigation has found.

In exchange, agents allow contraband or unauthorized immigrants through inspection lanes, protect or escort traffickers or leak sensitive information, said Charles Edwards, acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee, Edwards cited the Zetas drug cartel as one of the leaders "involved increasingly in systematic corruption."

He did not elaborate on how non-cash methods of corruption, like sexual favors, have been used to corrupt agents.

Since October 2004, 127 Customs and Border Protection employees have been arrested or indicted for acts of corruption, said agency Commissioner Alan Bersin, speaking at the same hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Please read the bolded sentence again. Is the author serious? What a lack of imagination by the CNN Wire Staff!

Attractive woman in bar: [To heavyset guy drinking alone] So, you work at the border crossing?

Border Patrol officer: Yes.

AWIB: So, if we hop up to my hotel room, would you let my buddy pass through with some, um, unlicensed pets tomorrow at 4 pm?

BPO: Yes. I'll be in lane four. [To bartender] Check, please.

Do we really need Bersin to explain that? Anyway, 127 in seven years doesn't strike me as all that many in an agency of more than 60,000, so no need for hysteria. Nonetheless, this is a pretty good example of where the Mexican drug trade could potentially pose a significant problem inside the US.