Brothers Raúl and Fidel Villarreal, former US Border Patrol agents who in August 2012 were found guilty of smuggling Mexican and Brazilians across the US-Mexico border and accepting bribes from public officials, will appear before a San Diego judge to receive their sentence. They face up to 50 years in prison and at least $1.25 million in penalties. The Villarreal brothers had quit their jobs and fled to Mexico in June 2006 after they learned they were the subject of a federal probe. They were arrested two years later and charged with human smuggling, witness tampering and bribery.
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The brothers had plead not guilty in 2012 in what was perhaps the highest-profile corruption cases associated with the Border Patrol in the decade since it first began seeking out large amounts of new hires. Raúl Villarreal, who reportedly recruited his older brother Fidel to join him in a smuggling ring which used San Diego Border Patrol vehicles to bring Mexican and Brazilian migrants into the US illegally, was long the public face of the Border Patrol, making frequent Spanish-language television appearances as an agency spokesman, according to the LA Times. He also once played the role of a smuggler in a public service ad.
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Prosecution at Raúl's trial relied on accounts of alleged accomplices and migrants who entered the US illegally through their smuggling ring. Some identified Fidel in photographs. One 24-year-old Brazilian woman said she paid $12,000 to be taken across the border in "a police car", saying a police official in Tijuana drove her to the border. There they were met, she said, by a US "immigration police" officer in the Border Patrol's classic green uniform, who drove about 15 minutes before ordering her and her fellow migrants to wait in roadside brush for another ride to come take them to a drop house in San Diego, according to NBC.
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The federal probe began in May 2005, sparked by an informant's tip. Investigators gathered information via cameras installed in areas where migrants were dropped off, recording device and tracking instruments planted in Border Patrol vehicles; they also followed the smuggling operations by airplane. Shortly after the brothers learned of the probe and quit the Border Patrol, they began a desperate effort to put earnings from their smuggling out of reach of the feds by emptying bank and retirement accounts, falsely reporting a Mercedes as stolen and dropping it off in Tijuana, and transferring ownership of a National City home to a younger sister.
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