Inside our border's first line of defense

Officer Grant: He told me from the interview that his wife packed his bag -- I don't believe him. I believe he bought the medicine to re-sell.

Officer Grant: How much did he pay for it (for the drugs?)

Translator/passenger: He paid $70.

Grant: He paid $70 for the steroids?

Translator: The whole thing.

Officer Grant: Now, before you told me you didn't know nothing about the luggage what was containing in that bag. I'm asking you again -- why are you trying to conceal information? I just want you to tell me the truth.

Officer Grant: Now, you are unemployed. Are you bringing these medicines in to re-sell here and make money?

Translator/passenger: He say, not exactly mean like that.

Officer Grant: OK, then what was he then?

Translator/passenger: Part of it he would use for himself, for his own. He take it himself and some he give to his to family and if somebody like a neighbor somebody that he knows.

Officer Grant: Here in the United States or in Laos?

Translator/passenger: Here. Here. Here. Then if they would want to buy he would sell it at a cheap price.

It takes officer Grant just 27 minutes to get this damning admission of guilt. Yet this passenger appears unaware that he just incriminated himself.

Officer Grant: Today, because you are carrying drugs, you are not admissible to the U.S. You violated immigration law.

The U.S. attorney's office declines to prosecute -- the seizure is too small. Instead the man will be deported.

Photographed and fingerprinted, he's placed on a flight home to return to his wife and seven children in Laos, broke and empty-handed.

His big roll of the dice was a bust.

Up in smoke
There are other, safer, ways for smugglers to make a buck sneaking in something that if discovered may not necessarily land them in jail or get them deported.

Espinoza: We're basically performing a blitz on a flight that originated in Cambodia to Tai Pei to Los Angeles. Upon reading the x-ray and interpreting what was being displayed, they noticed these boxes, and obviously they were many boxes of the same pattern, so they basically detected an anomaly.

That anomaly turned out to be foreign cigarettes

Specialist: We got 10, 20, 25 cartons, they are allowed two. They have no warning for cancer on it, which makes it intrinsically unenterable and since they have no warning label, they're not allowed in the country.

Specialist: Declaration?

Daughter: They are my mom's, not me.

Specialist: Kim Yang, that's you?

Daughter(pointing to mom): Over there.

Specialist: Coming in from Cambodia. And of course they belong to her mom, they are not hers. So we'll see what her mom will do with them.

Specialist: Hello. You have a lot of cigarettes.

Daughter: Yeah, because my uncle send to his friend. So that why she not know.

Specialist: And your mom packed the bag and this is her name? OK, you'll have to wait here ma'am. I have to go get a customs officer, excuse me.

Neither mom nor daughter declared the cigarettes on their customs form. It's a mistake that could end up costing them a hefty fine.

Officer 2: OK, ma'am. All these bags are yours?

Woman: yes.

Officer 2: Go ahead and put all of your bags down.

Officer 2: No, you're not allowed to bring this many.

Daughter: Oh, how many?

Officer 2: One per person, one carton per adult.

Officer: Why did you bring so much?

Daughter: I don't know, my friends.

Officer 2: Your friends?

Daughter: Yes.

Officer 2: Well, your friends are going to owe you a lot of money because this is gone.

But there are more bags to search.

Officer 2: Several more. About 40 more cartons.

Espinoza: When we see this many, it suggests to me that they're ultimately going to resell the cigarettes. It could net the passenger about $2,500. Which is probably the value of the tickets that they paid to and from Cambodia.

Clearly, against the law. The only question now: will the women be fined? It's the officer's call.

Espinoza: We have a lot of traditional missions here and one of them is protecting the American consumer. And obviously, these types of cigarettes that are being imported, we don't know the actual content of the tobacco of any kind of additional additives they could add to the tobacco which could be even more harmful to the end consumer.

Officers make note of the seizure in the computer. The cigarettes are counted and destroyed.

Officer 3: You're receipt, and have a nice day.

Officer 2: Here, they can have that to go out.

Officer 3: Yeah, give it to the officer at the exit booth over there. That's it.

Officer 2: Don't do it again.

Officer 3: Yeah.

This time, the officers give the passengers a break. They walk away with a warning. If they get caught again, it could end up costing them a lot more than a plane ticket.

It’s just one of the variety of cases, large and small, that the men and women of Customs and Border Protection confront every day.

It's a job they love.

Dooley: I still get that rush after 11 years. I'm almost like a kid in the candy store when I get a seizure. It's a good feeling.

They have 60 seconds to size up a possible criminal.

Officer (talking to passenger at passport control): Do you have a credit card? Where are you staying?

While standing guard against a possible terrorist attack.

Labranche: It just takes that one container to get in the U.S. and it could be used to make a dirty bomb.

And they never let down their guard.

Labranche: After that's just the next truck, then the next truck and the next truck, 24 hours a day.

Miller: Our job never ends. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week. We never close.

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