RiverNorthPhotography/iStock(WASHINGTON) — A former Customs and Border Protection agent was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for helping smugglers get drugs across the southern border, according to a case unsealed Friday.
For 10 years while still an agent, Robert Hall “facilitated the trafficking of illegal drugs, including marijuana, into the United States from Mexico on behalf of a drug trafficking organization,” the Department of Justice said.
According to the Justice Department, Hall in total accepted $50,000 in cash from a drug trafficking organization “in exchange for using his position as a BPA to enable the DTO’s drug shipments to cross the border into Texas without law enforcement detection,” the DOJ said.
At the time the agent was employed by CBP, he is no longer a CBP employee.
Hall and his associate Daniel Hernandez gave sensitive information to a drug trafficking organization, which is not named, along the southern border, according to Hernandez’s indictment, which lists Hall as “Person A.”
The two men, in exchange for payments, gave the drug trafficking organization CBP sensor locations, the location of unpatrolled roads, the number of Border Patrol agents working in a certain area and keys to gates located on the southern border.
A lawyer for Hall did not comment on the case when reached by ABC News.
Daniel Hernandez, who is set to be sentenced in May, is a former CBP nurse who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe a public official in February.
In one instance, Hernandez was paid $500 for a map containing sensor locations and a copy of a key that opened CBP locks, according to court documents.
In total, Hernandez accepted $5,000 in bribes from the drug trafficking organization, authorities said.
“Confronted with his regrettable mistake, Daniel has accepted responsibility,” his lawyer Nick Oberheiden told ABC News. “He is contrite and remorseful and he wants to make things right.”
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