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By Bill Goldston |
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September 30, 2010 - Cindy Moran-Sanchez, a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer at the Miami International Airport, was sentenced to prison on charges of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States from the Dominican Republic following an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG). On Sept. 21, U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn sentenced Moran, 32, to 14 years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release and a $30,000 fine. Co-conspirators Elizabeth Moran-Toala, 39, a former CBP officer, and Jose Sanchez, 40, a former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) supervisor at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, have also been convicted and sentenced for their respective roles in the conspiracy. |
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On June 25, 2009,
Elizabeth Moran-Toala was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Jose
Sanchez was sentenced on Oct. 1, 2009 to 11 years and three months in
prison.
In May 2009, Cindy
Moran-Sanchez, her husband Jose Sanchez, and her sister Elizabeth Moran-Toala,
were charged in a superseding indictment for their participation in a
conspiracy to import and distribute heroin and cocaine. Moran-Sanchez
and Moran-Toala used their positions as CBP officers, and their access
to government databases, to facilitate the entry of drug couriers
traveling from the
Jose Sanchez, in
turn, used his position as a TSA supervisor to ensure that the couriers
and their drug-laden suitcases, successfully made their way on board
domestic flights bound from |
In 2006, the defendants traveled to the Dominican Republic and formulated a plan with a prior drug associate of Moran-Sanchez to use their respective positions within DHS to facilitate the importation of cocaine and heroin into the United States, and thereafter, to points within the United States.
As part of this
plan, the defendants agreed that the associate, who had previously been
deported from the Once the narcotics arrived in the United States, Elizabeth Moran-Toala and Jose Sanchez would use their positions and contacts at CBP to ensure, to the best of their ability, that the couriers and illegal narcotics passed through the customs enclosure at the Fort Lauderdale Airport without being detected by law enforcement agents and thereafter passed through TSA checkpoints to be placed on domestic commercial aircraft. The group agreed that the associate would pay the defendants a per kilogram fee for each kilogram of either cocaine or heroin which was imported successfully as part of this scheme.
In September 2006,
the associate reentered the |
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