Trucker Attorney: CBP Agent Told Trucker to Make U-Turn in Mexico at Bridge

The El Paso attorney for the imprisoned Dallas trucker in Mexico says a Customs and Border Protection agent told the truck driver to cross into Mexico, make a u-turn, then return to the US side of the bridge.

“It was definitely a CBP agent that he spoke to,” attorney Carlos Spector said. “His description of an officer in ‘blue,’ on the American side who spoke English — it was customs who told him to go through.”

In a press conference held in Spector’s central El Paso law office on Wednesday, family and employers of imprisoned Dallas trucker Jabin Bogan, told media Bogan is innocent and that he simply made a wrong turn. Bogan is currently being held in the Villa Aldama Prison in Veracruz, Mexico, charged with military ammunition smuggling.

Shipment orders affirm Bogan was transporting the ammunition from a Tennessee ammunition manufactory to a Phoenix ammo shop, with a cargo load of 268,000 rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition. Bogan’s employers say he had three delivery stops to make in El Paso, dropping off computer supplies among other orders. Bogan had aleady made his first two deliveries on the city’s east side.

“If you want to get caught at the bridge, you send a black man, who doesn’t speak Spanish, in a big truck, to Mexico,” Spector said.

It was when he was heading to the final stop that Bogan’s family and attorney say he got turned around and ended up heading toward the Bridge of the Americas. They say that because of traffic and the size of the rig, he was unable to turn around.

They now claim it was a CBP agent who told Bogan to go through to Mexico, turn around there, then head back to the US.

In an effort to retrace the trucker’s route while he was in El Paso, Spector says he, his staff and Bogan’s mother drove up to the Bridge of the Americas and tried to make a u-turn. The u-turn is barricaded by iron rods and must be moved by CBP personnel. They claim an agent was rude to them, denied their claim of what happenened to Bogan, and then proceeded to take their phones and cameras and delete the photos they had taken.

CBP spokesman, Roger Maier says photography is not allowed at the bridge, and if Spector and the family had wanted a tour, they should have called beforehand. CBP checks traffic and cargo heading into Mexico as their resources permit, Maier has said. Maier says CBP was not checking southbound traffic at the time Bogan crossed on April 17.