Drug Cartel Corruption at Customs and Secret Immigrant Tunnels with John Carman

Former U.S. Customs official and whistleblower John Carman gives his account of alleged corruption at the U.S.-Mexico border and links between Mexican drug cartels and government agencies supposedly leading America’s war on drugs.

Carman said during his years of service, he saw mounds of evidence that the government is heavily involved in facilitating drugs coming across the border. “I can state several cases where even my own supervisors at U.S. Customs of Hispanic descent, and they claim there is a Mexican mafia inside the U.S. Customs Service, which is possible. Because they’ve caught cartel members who have tried to infiltrate and work as inspectors.

“I received death threats after a heroin seizure,” he revealed. “Even after I got home I had a recorded death threat on my telephone, which was an unlisted phone number when I was in Calexico. And I received subsequent death threats after that when I reported other illegal activity, when it specifically involved U.S. Customs supervision.”

He also cited one way corrupt Mexican authorities get people and drugs across the border. “There’s all kinds of stuff going on that the government doesn’t want you to know about – including the incursions into the United States by the Mexican military, all the tunnels they’ve got, things like that.”

When asked to elaborate on the tunnels, Carman said they are clearly used to transport drugs and illegal immigrants. “They can always get illegal immigrants across, it’s the cocaine and marijuana that they have to do by the ton, or truckloads.”

He also refers to an incident with 10 tanker trucks in 1990 in which he claims a U.S. Customs supervisor contacted agents and told them to wave the truck through, even though a canine and an officer were alerting to possible illegal drugs. He said the supervisor played down the approval to get through, saying, “Oh, the guy was probably smoking a joint, let it go, don’t worry about it.’”

“These tanker trucks, each were able to over 10,000-15,000 pounds each, and these guys were waving this stuff through, with the supervision controlling the entry.” He explains that the supervisors would allow such breaches in protocol because either they were getting personal bribes, or were being directed by higher-ups to do so.”

He said he performed as best as he could, and seized banned items, but starting getting death threats in 1986, and was transferred back to San Diego. He said he also found corruption there, where supervisors prevented him from doing his job.

He talks about what prompted him to become a whistleblower in the 90s. “The retaliation was getting worse, and I had received threats, and every time I reported something to Internal Affairs, it was falling on deaf ears.” When he brought his concerns to officials up the ladder at the highest levels, he said it went nowhere and he was consistently passed over for promotions.

He said that included in the information he made public was a list of 167 names of people who paid bribes to be allowed to come into the United States. Carman claims he verified the list with immigration officials and some were suspected drug smugglers.

Watch the full episode to also hear Carman talk about trying to send whistleblower materials to Sonny Bono - who was scheduled to have meetings in Congress on border corruption and drug smuggling issues - but died tragically just a few weeks prior.