In at least one conversation, a Border Patrol agent allegedly guided a man he believed to be a drug smuggler on how best to evade detection at a border patrol checkpoint, an unsealed complaint shows.
Oberlin Cortez Peña Jr., a Border Patrol agent assigned to the Falfurrias checkpoint, was charged with attempting to aid and abet possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance after a nearly month-long internal investigation led to his arrest July 9, records show.
(Read: Border Patrol agent from La Joya arrested on federal charge)
Cortez, of La Joya, allegedly helped move several kilos of cocaine through a Border Patrol checkpoint on at least two different and separate occasions.
In June, special agents with the U.S Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General “developed a cooperator” to make contact with Cortez.
On June 21, Cortez allegedly communicated with the federal cooperator and arranged to work as “counter surveillance” for the cooperator for $500. The cooperator told Cortez he was trying to smuggle an undocumented man through the Falfurrias checkpoint, the complaint stated.
“(Cortez), a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, said he would drive ahead on his way to work and communicate which checkpoint lane to smuggle the (undocumented man) through,” the document stated.
The following day, Cortez met the cooperator at a mall in McAllen.
During this meeting, the complaint alleged Cortez and the cooperator agreed on additional smuggling jobs, including one that would try to move 5 kilos of cocaine through the checkpoint.
Cortez agreed to do the job for $1,000 and to also check his work schedule to see which agents were working on specific days in an attempt to successfully cross the load past the checkpoint, the document stated.
The complaint also alleged Cortez went as far as instructing the cooperator as to which specific days and times to smuggle the loads; in the aforementioned case, he told the cooperator that June 28 would be an ideal date.
“(Cortez) suggested moving the smuggling to Monday, June 28, 2021, because the team (Border Patrol Agents) sucks, and that the (agents) are all rookies,” the document showed. “(Cortez) told the cooperator that he didn’t want to risk being caught.”
On June 25, the Border Patrol agent told the cooperator to have the cocaine load vehicle drive behind him. The special agents from the OIG placed a backpack cooler with roughly 6 kilos of cocaine inside the load vehicle and drove toward the checkpoint, according to the complaint.
Later that same day, Cortez allegedly told the cooperator he would let him know which lane to use. After the loaded vehicle passed through the checkpoint with Cortez’s guidance, the two men met in La Joya where the cooperator paid Cortez $1,000, the document stated.
There was another alleged meeting between Cortez and the cooperator in which a subsequent smuggling job was discussed. Roughly weeks after the June 25 incident, another loaded car passed through the checkpoint and Cortez was paid $1,000 again, the record shows.
Cortez, 22, who made his initial appearance in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia Medrano on Monday, is scheduled for a detention hearing July 15.
If convicted, he faces a minimum of 10 years and up to life in federal prison, as well as a possible $10 million maximum fine.
