Grand jury charges a third CBP officer with allowing illegal crossings through a San Diego port of entry
She and two of her CBP colleagues who have already been arrested allegedly worked together for financial gain to allow certain undocumented migrants into the U.S.
As others have already reported, a recently unsealed grand jury indictment named a third U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who allegedly allowed undocumented migrants into the U.S. at a San Diego port of entry.
That agent, Kairy Stephania Quiñonez, allegedly coordinated with two of her CBP colleagues, Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez, who were arrested about two months ago.
But there was also a fourth defendant named in the indictment, according to the case files on PACER. The U.S. attorney’s office made no mention of that fourth defendant, someone named Jaime Torres Jr., in a May 6 news release about the case. (There is also a fifth defendant whose name is redacted.)
This case is one of many involving CBP officers charged for working with either human smugglers or drug traffickers, as I’m actively working to document.
It’s unclear based on the indictment whether Torres also worked for CBP, but the indictment alleges that he “recruited drivers to cross passenger vehicles carrying illegal aliens from Mexico into the United States.”
Almonte, Rodriguez and Quiñonez all face charges for allowing smugglers to lead undocumented migrants through their inspection lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Almonte and Rodriguez are also charged with accepting bribes.
The indictment alleges that the three of them “shared with co-conspirators their lane assignments and times when they were scheduled to be operating the primary inspection booths.”
A closer look at the defendants:
According to a court filing by his attorney, Rodriguez was “a participant in the National Guard” from 2012 to 2023. He has no previous criminal record and worked for TSA before CBP. He quit his job in January and has been living with his girlfriend in Mexico.
Almonte doesn’t have a criminal history either, according to his attorney. He worked in private security, then became a federal protective services officer for the Department of Homeland Security in 2015. He began working for CBP about six years ago in Arizona and Minnesota before being stationed in San Diego in 2023.
Quiñonez worked briefly for the city of Baltimore as a visitation monitor, where she checked on households with domestic violence victims, before starting with CBP in 2021, according to social media that I located with an OSINT Industries email search. For a time, she was also learning Portuguese on Duolingo.
Here’s a quick timeline of the case so far:
March 25 — Government prosecutors filed charges against Almonte and Rodriguez for bringing in undocumented migrants for financial gain and receiving bribes. Both were arrested.
April 8 — Almonte is released on bond.
April 22 — Almonte and Rodriguez pleaded not guilty.
April 25 — Rodriguez is released on bond.
May 1 — Grand jury indictment was posted publicly on PACER, naming Almonte, Rodriguez, Quiñonez, Torres and a fifth defendant whose name is redacted.
May 2 — Quiñonez was arrested.
May 5 — Quiñonez pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of allowing undocumented migrants into the U.S. for financial gain.
May 6 — Torres was arrested. The U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of California, which includes San Diego, publishes a press release that curiously omits any reference to him. Conditions for release, including a $30,000 bond, were posted to the court’s website but there is no document that confirms his release, suggesting he still may be in custody.
May 7 — Quiñonez was released on bond. Torres pleaded not guilty on charges that he brought migrants into the U.S. for financial gain.