Former fed officer sentenced for smuggling illegsl aliens and getting paid by cartel

LAREDO, Texas – A former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in federal prison for two separate crimes: letting undocumented immigrants and cocaine cross the U.S. border, according to U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.

Emanuel Isac Celedon, a 37-year-old from Laredo, admitted guilt on March 11, 2024, for illegally helping undocumented immigrants enter the U.S. through the Lincoln Juarez Port of Entry in Laredo. He also confessed to taking bribes and trying to smuggle cocaine by accepting cash to let what he believed was cocaine come into the U.S. from Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Diana Saldana sentenced Celedon to a total of 117 months (just under 10 years) in prison for both crimes, followed by four years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $17,980. During the hearing, the judge pointed out that Celedon’s job was to stop drugs and unauthorized people from entering the U.S., but he failed at both. She noted that he was heavily involved in the criminal group and seemed eager to get even more involved.

“Anyone who helps or works for the cartel will end up facing serious federal charges,” Ganjei said. “This case is especially disturbing because of the trust the defendant was given in his role. His actions are the opposite of the brave work CBP officers do every day to keep our borders and ports safe.”

In 2023, while working as a CBP officer in Laredo, Celedon reached out to the Cartel del Noreste, a Mexican criminal group, to smuggle drugs and people through his inspection lane for money. During a secret police operation, he showed interest in smuggling cocaine for cash, shared his work schedule, and told a driver with a loaded vehicle to use his lane at the border crossing. He then let the vehicle enter the U.S. without trouble.

Using his position, Celedon allowed several kilograms of what he thought was cocaine into the U.S. on two occasions in October 2023, earning $6,000 in return. Investigations also showed he worked with at least three others to sneak undocumented immigrants into the country without proper checks. Celedon gave his lane assignment to Homero Romero-Hernandez, a 32-year-old Mexican national, who passed it to Jose Osvaldo Zapata-Vasquez, a 25-year-old with cartel connections. Zapata-Vasquez then hired Beatris Guadalupe Martinez, a 22-year-old from Cotulla, to drive.

Zapata-Vasquez gave Martinez directions based on Celedon’s tips about when to pick up immigrants in Mexico and which lane to use at the border. Evidence showed Martinez drove people through Celedon’s lane at least nine times between September and November 2023. Each time, Celedon let them in without checking the passengers. On at least two occasions, he even entered fake information into a CBP system to avoid sending Martinez for a required second inspection.

Celedon also asked Zapata-Vasquez and Romero-Hernandez to tell smugglers in Mexico that he was doing his part to help the cartel’s efforts. When he was arrested, police found $1,980 in cash on him, which he admitted came from smuggling people.

Judge Saldana had already sentenced Zapata-Vasquez to 46 months, Romero-Hernandez to 36 months, and Martinez to 42 months in prison. Celedon will stay in custody until he’s moved to a federal prison, which will be decided soon.

The investigation was carried out by several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), and CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, with help from other law enforcement groups.

This case is part of a larger effort called the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), which targets major criminal organizations threatening the U.S. It also ties into Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), a Department of Homeland Security program focused on stopping cartels and human smuggling networks in Mexico and Central America that affect U.S. border security.

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McCabe's brain goes blank on Trump dossier

Congressional investigators spoke exclusively to Fox News about Tuesday's seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Evidently, there were a load of conflicts within his testimony compared to that of other witnesses. 

This prompted the Republican majority staff of the House Intelligence Committee to issue new subpoenas next week on DOJ and FBI personnel.

Although the committee will not confirm who will be the recipients of the subpoenas, in all probability it will be  DOJ's sneaky slime Bruce Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe to Tuesday's session.

The DOJ subpoena could create a constitutional clash between the two branches that goes beyond the "stonewalling" over documents and witnesses that have been brought before the committee. Devin Nunes (R.-Calif.) the HPSCI Chairman threatened contempt-of-Congress citations against Deputy Attorney General Rod "The Zero" Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Regarding McCabe's questioning, one investigator said that "It's hard to know who's telling us the truth."

Sources close to the investigation say that McCabe was a "friendly witness" to the Democrats in the room, who apparently pressed the deputy director, to help them build a case (unsuccessfully) against President Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russia-collusion probe.

Investigators say McCabe told the panel that the FBI worked hard to verify the contents of the anti-Trump "dossier" and stood by its credibility. But when pressed about what it was in the document that corroborated this, the sources said McCabe cited only that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page went to Moscow. But beyond that, McCabe couldn't even claim the FBI had verified the dossier's allegations about the specific meetings Page allegedly held in Moscow.

McCabe's convenient memory went blank when asked when he learned that the Hillary Clinton campaign funded the dossier along with the Democratic National Committee. He even forgot that he signed documents about them that established his knowledge of the dossier's financing and its origin.

Then there's Bruce Ohr, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS while the dossier was being formed. He has been given a subpoena as he is ready to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee which is conducting its own probe into Russian interference in last year's election.

Ohr has been demoted after holding two titles at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general and director of Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF)--[not to be confused with LBGTQQIP2SAA which is shorthand for : lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, pansexual, 2-spirited, asexual and allies].

Ohr will retain his OCDETF title but was stripped of his higher post and thrown out of his fourth floor "Main Justice" office, but not via the window. Any further demotion would relegate him to urinal cake installer.

People need to be put away for this.



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Top DoJ official no longer tops in officialdom

A senior Justice Department official was quietly demoted this week amid an ongoing investigation into his contacts with an opposition research team responsible for the anti-Trump "dossier." This information was given and confirmed by Fox News.

Bruce G. Ohr held two positions at the Justice Department: associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy," according to the department's description.

Those positions were stripped from him on Wednesday morning.

While he will keep his OCDETF title, his higher post was taken from him--he was ousted from his fourth floor office of "Main Justice."

At first, senior department officials couldn't give the reason for his demotion, but it was later learned that evidence collected by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), shows that Ohr met during the 2016 campaign with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the "dossier."

The DOJ later told Fox News, "It is unusual for anyone to wear two hats as he has done recently. This person is going to go back to a single focus--director of our organized crime and drug enforcement unit. As you know, combatting transnational criminal organizations and drug trafficking is a top priority for the Attorney General."

It was also discovered that Ohr met shortly after the election with the founder of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson. This is the opposition research firm that hired Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier with funds supplied by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, a known crime organization specializing in fraud and sexual misconduct.

By this point, the dossier had been in the possession of the FBI for five months, and the surveillance on Page had begun more than two months prior. The FBI, of course, exists under the auspices of the DOJ.

Former FBI Director James Comey, testified before the House in March and described the dossier as a compendium of "salacious and unverified" allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump and his associates.

Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' panel has been investigating whether DOJ, under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, used the dossier to justify a foreign surveillance warrant against Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. If so, this puts the dossier and FBI in a bad light.

Contacts between Ohr and Steele, and Ohr and Simpson, have not been publicly disclosed nor shared with HPSCI staff to avoid embarrassment. 

The panel has issued many subpoenas for documents and witnesses related to the dossier but say the DOJ and FBI have "stonewalled," and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) agreed to that assessment publicly in October.

The agencies claim that they've cooperated extensively with Nunes and his team, but it was only last weekend they agreed to make available to the committee for questioning Peter Strzok (pronounced "Strzhzhokztlmfk") the high-ranking FBI official who seemed to be the guy involved in all the interviews involving political scandals and texted his mistress with anti-Trump messages and how he promises to one day leave his wife for her etc.

Strzok was removed from the staff of Special Counsel Robert Mueller who is probing allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Strzok was demoted to the FBI's position of Urinal Cake Installer.

Ohr's demotion marks the second one with a few months where the DOJ and FBI disciplined staff for misconduct.

At least it wasn't sexual misconduct . . . that we know of.


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