Two CBP Agents in San Diego Arrested for Working with Mexican Cartel

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat
With Contributions from "HEARST"

From a San Diego Tribune Article by Alex Riggens

Before their arrests in May of this year, two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers appeared to be living large, according to prosecutors.

One had dropped thousands of dollars on luxury items from Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Burberry, owned a stake in a horse racing stable and was building a large home on a Mexican ranch.

The other had taken multiple European vacations and was about to attend a pricey boxing match in Las Vegas when he was arrested.

Prosecutors allege that it wasn’t their federal government salaries funding those lavish lifestyles. Instead, Jesse Clark Garcia and Diego Bonillo are accused of working for an unnamed Mexican drug trafficking organization to allow vehicles loaded with fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to pass unchecked through their inspection lanes at the Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry.

Details of the case, which has not previously been reported, were partially laid out in a search warrant affidavit unsealed Tuesday in federal court in San Diego, as well as in other filings by prosecutors in recent months. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego did not announce the arrests or the indictment as it has in previous cases for law enforcement officers accused, convicted or sentenced for wrongdoing.

Prosecutors allege Garcia and Bonillo “profited handsomely,” earning tens of thousands of dollars for each drug-laden vehicle they ushered into the U.S. without scrutiny. The indictment alleges that Garcia and Bonillo combined allowed more than 1,150 pounds (520 kilos) of drugs into the U.S. on 5 occasions between April 2021 and February of this year. That total only accounts for the drugs that authorities later seized.

Both men were arrested in early May as the result of an investigation led by the FBI San Diego field office’s Border Corruption Task Force. Their arrests came exactly one month before their former CBP colleague, Leonard Darnell George, went on trial in a similar but seemingly unrelated case. A federal jury convicted George in June of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for allowing smugglers to bring drugs and undocumented migrants through his inspection lane at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

In June, a large indictment was announced as part of Operation Valley Takedown that included the arrest of Brawley, California resident Alexander Bennet Grindley, who was arrested for alleged methamphetamine trafficking...while working as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. He had trafficked methamphetamine even during work hours.

“Corruption undermines the integrity of our border security and poses a grave threat to public safety,” U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath told the Union-Tribune in a statement Wednesday. “Allegations that border officials are complicit in fentanyl trafficking are especially troubling. This office will bring those who put our community at risk to justice.”

Arrested in Mexico & Las Vegas

Court records showed that Mexican authorities arrested Jesse Clark Garcia and turned him over on May 2 to U.S. authorities at the Arizona border. Prosecutors alleged that in late March, he crossed into Mexico with a fully packed vehicle and did not return to the U.S. until he was in custody. Prosecutors said that during that time, Garcia didn’t show up for work and his CBP supervisors didn’t know his whereabouts.

According to the indictment and other court records, the first documented drug crossing involving Garcia occurred in April 2021. Prosecutors allege that late one morning, a woman driving a KIA Soul was trying to enter the U.S. through Garcia’s inspection lane at the Tecate Port of Entry even though his lane had traffic and a second lane was open.

Other CBP officers directed that driver to the second lane, where an alert on her vehicle prompted a search. Officers found hidden in the vehicle about 140 pounds of what turned out to be a mix of cocaine and fentanyl, and more than 25 pounds of methamphetamine. The driver was arrested and charged in federal court in San Diego with several drug importation charges.

She later absconded after being released on bond and remains a fugitive, according to court records. Later, investigators would learn she often crossed the Tecate border in Garcia’s lane, and that when he took a two-week leave, she crossed through his lane immediately before his leave and immediately when he returned, but not once during his absence.

Prosecutors allege that one afternoon in August 2023, Garcia was assigned to a pedestrian lane in Tecate when he suddenly asked another officer working in a vehicle inspection lane to switch with him. Moments after the switch, Garcia waved through the border a woman driving a Toyota Camry. Not long after that, Garcia’s shift ended and he headed back toward San Diego on state Route 94, followed closely by the driver of the Camry.

Agents at a Border Patrol checkpoint along the highway allowed Garcia in his own vehicle to pass but stopped the Camry. Inside the car, the agents found more than 475 pounds of cocaine and nearly 9 pounds of fentanyl, according to prosecutors. The Camry’s driver later pleaded guilty to two federal charges and admitted her car was loaded with drugs when it passed through Garcia’s border inspection lane. Prosecutors said crossing records showed that the woman also frequently went through Garcia’s lane when crossing into the U.S.

By February, FBI and DEA agents appeared to be monitoring Garcia’s actions. One day early in the month, undercover agents secretly followed two different vehicles that passed through his lane within about two hours of each other. When they eventually stopped those vehicles, they found about 130 pounds of methamphetamine in one; the other was loaded with 120 pounds of cocaine, 82 pounds of methamphetamine and 71 pounds of fentanyl.

It appears a records check on the driver of one of those vehicles is what led the FBI and DEA agents to Bonillo, a 30-year-old Army veteran who joined CBP in April 2023. When crossing the border in Otay Mesa, a much larger crossing than Tecate, that driver had often crossed through Bonillo’s lane.

On Feb. 15, the driver of a Buick LaCrosse that investigators later learned was loaded with drugs attempted to cross through Bonillo’s lane in Otay Mesa. Investigators believe Bonillo tipped off the driver that he might be followed. After crossing the border, the driver allegedly “engaged in highly surveillance-cautious maneuvers,” an FBI agent wrote in a search warrant. The driver then abandoned the car in a public parking lot and fled through the back of a store.

Prosecutors allege another person later came to retrieve the Buick and eventually took it to a San Diego home. Agents later raided the home and discovered 95 pounds of fentanyl powder and smaller amounts of fentanyl pills and heroin hidden inside the car, according to court records. Agents also arrested several people inside the home, where they found more drugs, and later learned that at least two of those people had previously crossed the border through Bonillo’s lanes.

Two days after the arrest of Garcia, FBI agents arrested Diego Bonillo in Las Vegas, where he was staying at the ARIA Resort and Casino and had $2,000 tickets to the May 4 fight between legendary Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez and Tijuana’s Jaime Munguia.

He claimed that he had not visited family back in Mexico since 2023 while his brother-in-law testified that he went a couple of times each month. Records indicated that in the time period between January and May of 2024, he traveled to Mexico a total of 53 times.

A third defendant in the case remains a fugitive; that defendant’s name remains sealed, but that person is not believed to be a CBP officer.

Garcia and Bonillo have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them and remain in custody after judges ruled both were flight risks. Garcia’s attorney declined to comment Wednesday. Bonillo’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Garcia and Bonillo both face a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted. They’re next due in court for a hearing late next month.

Sources San Diego Tribune