Lavish trips to Dubai and designer clothing for a federal border agent’s wife were allegedly funded by his suspected membership of a Mexican drug cartel, sources told DailyMail.com.
Prosecutors allege Manuel Perez Jr., an agent with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in El Paso, Texas, had been bankrolled to the tune of $300,000 to $400,000 a year by ‘La Linea,’ the armed wing of the Juarez drug cartel, El Paso Times reported.
In stunning court testimony, Perez was accused of getting paid to let illegal immigrants and drugs into the US, but also of being a member of the cartel that was paying him, federal prosecutors alleged during a hearing last week.
Now sources have told DailyMail.com that his wife’s jet-set lifestyle, her extravagant social media posts, and his own team of personal bodyguards were red flags before his arrest.
‘He would party in Juarez (Mexico) all the time with bodyguards, and him and his wife would always go on trips to Dubai and Vegas with all the designer clothes,’ a federal officer told DailyMail.com.
‘Multiple witnesses said he belonged to La Linea Cartel in Mexico,’ an investigator with the CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility testified at the court hearing in El Paso Thursday.
While federal immigration agents are from time to time accused of taking money for letting immigrants or drugs through, it’s rare to hear that a US official is a part of a cartel.
‘It’s not very common, but at the same time, it doesn’t surprise me,’ retired federal agent and cartel expert Robert Almonte told DailyMail.com.
‘The cartels have been working on infiltrating law enforcement: state, local and federal; as well as our military.’
Perez, assigned to inspect people and cars trying to enter the US from Mexico at a checkpoint at the Paso del Norte International Bridge, was taken into custody on February 8 while he was on the job.
A photo of the arrest shows Perez, 32, in a navy-colored uniform worn by agents in CBP’s Office of Field Operations.
With his hands behind his back, he was lead away by other federal agents who had been surveilling him.
He pleaded not guilty to violating multiple immigration laws includng migrant conspiracy and drug smuggling.
Prosecutors say he also conspired to take eight kilos of cocaine from El Paso to Louisiana and North Carolina.
The now-fired officer had allegedly been letting illegal immigrants through his inspection lane since December 2023 and making money off of it.
He made $2,500 per illegal immigrant he let into the country, Perez admitted to investigators, according to testimony
Smugglers bragged they had ‘the officer in their pocket’ during intercepted phone calls, prosecutors stated, adding that Perez made up to $400,000 since 2023 through human smuggling.
With the additional money, Perez and his wife lived like a drug lord, his co-workers had noticed after seeing extravagant internet posts made by Perez’s wife.
Perez’s wife deleted her social media accounts after her husband was taken into custody.
The lifestyle presented in her posts appeared to be beyond what a CBP officer making $100,000-$200,000 on a government salary could afford.
Perez not only partied in Juarez, the Mexican city directly across the border from El Paso, but lived there, too.
While he kept an apartment on the US side of the border, he also rented a home on the Mexican side – where he spent 80 percent of his time when he wasn’t at work, prosecutors claimed.
Federal agents are not allowed to live in Mexico unless they are assigned there, and most would consider it too dangerous.
Prosecutors said Perez was always armed while in Juarez, even while he was sleeping, and that he was accompanied by security.
As part of the testimony, investigators said they had photos of Perez and his armed goons in Mexico.
After his arrest, $18,000 in cash was found at his Juarez home.
Perez had been ordered to remain in jail in El Paso, despite his lawyer’s best effort to get him released on bond last week.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel Torres ordered him held without bond, saying there is ‘no question’ that Perez is a flight risk.
He’s now charged with multiple counts of federal human and drug smuggling charges and could spend life in prison if he’s convicted.
La Linea began as the armed wing of the powerful Juarez Cartel and now has access to drug and human trafficking routes along the U.S. border.
The violent organization started with ex-police officers acting as hitmen.
They operate out of Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua and have been involved in vicious clashes with the Sinola cartel over lucrative drug routes.
In 2011, La Linea leader Jose Antonio Acosta, nickname ‘El Diego’ confessed to ordering the killing of around 1,500 people in less than four years.
He was convicted and is now serving life in prison in the U.S.
In November 2019, La Linea members murdered nine American members of a Mormon family, including six children, in a case of mistaken identity.
Last year, the Treasury Department under President Joe Biden sanctioned several members of the leadership.
Perez’s lawyer did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment at the time of publication.