Nice stat for the Feebs, but, as Ms. Schlussel points out, the GROUNDWORK was laid out by the legacy U.S. Customs OI.
Why isn’t ICE doing that kind of work today? Well, it might be convenient to blame Brian Moskowitz (no defense here, though), but the REAL reasons are twofold:
1. ICE gave up terrorist financial investigations (many having an international nexus, and under ENORMOUS political pressure) to an agency (i.e. the FBI) that had little, if any experience in this area. Heck, it would be like asking ICE to investigate a bank robbery – something that ICE is not TRAINED to do.
2. But, even moreso, the entire focus of ICE is moving away from its legacy Customs traditional role of investigating drug smuggling, weapons trafficking, child poronography and, yes, money laundering, to almost exclsively in favor of illegal immigration round-ups and deports. You don’t need a GS-13 criminal investigator, whose job description SPECIFICALLY states that he/she will engage in the investigation, prosecution and dismantling of COMPLEX CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES to engage in the administrative arrests of aliens, many of whom will be out on the street before the agent says “boo”.
Start writing your Congressman and Senator: NO MORE ICE. Split ICE into a customs division and an immigration division AND FUND AND STAFF BOTH EQUALLY WELL. Don’t just expect 5,000 (and shrinking) ICE agents to do DOUBLE the work than it had before with only a 50 percent increase in staff and an actual combined LOSS of funding (compared to the funding levels of the respective legacy services).

4EVERCUSTOMS on September 18, 2006 at 7:23 pm

The politician’s new oath of office:
“I, (state your name), promise to protect the enemies of America from investigation, and, in return, I promise to line my pockets with as much largesse as possible given to me by them without getting caught either by the FBI, the CIA, or exposed by an intern-turned-lover who would reveal promises that I never fulfilled on that person’s behalf in exchange for deviant sexual favors (be that intern a male, female, animal, or reptile).
I also understand that although I’ve been elected to high office by the American people, my duties and true allegiance lie exclusively with the ACLU, the Communists, the Socialists, the Tyrants, the Dictators, the Islamo-fascists, and the rest of the heads of state, along with their agents, who are true enemies of my country.
I solemnly swear to uphold all of their interests above those of the American people, so help me Allah.”

Thee_Bruno on September 18, 2006 at 9:57 pm

Update:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060919/NEWS05/609190377/1007/NEWS
The place raided in Dearborn was the home of an LRD person who has political ties in Iraq.
A lawyer for LRD says the investigation is about possible violations of the Iraq embargo pre-2003.
Typo: “everything out of _their_”

Vancouver on September 19, 2006 at 4:25 am

4EVERCUSTOMS has it pretty close to right but I need to point out that, while it’s true that ICE is a fiasco, the sole mission is not the administrative arrests of aliens. I don’t know what he’s been doing with his time but I can state that, being former Border Patrol and legacy INS CI, I’ve been kept busy with bulk cash cases, child porn, and, in one instance, a case involving illegal arms parts being shipped overseas. I submit that, in the case of bulk cash smuggling, the majority of it is perpetrated by: ALIENS, both legal and illegal, and of several ethnicities, not just Hispanic. OK, you can argue that it’s just going back to Mexico to pay off drug debts but who’s to say that’s the sole reason? There’s a lot more going on than what the surface shows.

Gunny on September 19, 2006 at 5:39 am

Hopefully the connection between Moskowitz and the bad guys will come to light as a result of this operation. Then he can be arrested, put behind bars and sing to the authorities about all of his cronies (to save his own hide).
The only bad part would be it will take away one of Debbie’s favorite targets.

Craig C on September 19, 2006 at 6:21 am

Re. “Gunny”‘s comment:
I do appreciate the alternate POV. However, I wanted to bring some facts to light that you might not be aware of for your further consideration:
1. Stats that have been gleaned from USAOs and ICE SACs in many major and mid-sized offices across the nation demonstrate that, since the merger of legacy Customs and legacy INS, prosecutions for traditional Customs-investigated offenses have declined SHARPLY (correlated with a MARKED increase in admin arrests). Now, there are a myriad of reasons for the former, but, as for the latter, this would make perfect sense, since legacy INS increased the number of available agents to do its legacy work by almost 200 %.
2. While not revealing numbers here for OPSEC purposes, the number of certified undercover ops in ICE (as compared to legacy Customs), has decreased almost 75% (THAT’S RIGHT: SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT!) We can speculate as we will, but what that tells me (and many legacy Customs agents) is that Customs work is NOT, I repeat NOT important to management in DC, the Congress or the Executive branch.
3. Finally, and most telling, is that staffing in my office has, since the merger, decreased by almost one-third (THAT’S RIGHT: THIRTY-THREE PERCENT). Go figure: Either they want us to do double the work (i.e. both the immigration AND the customs mission), or, as many managers are finding out, it is politically more salient AT THIS TIME to abandon the customs mission, and concentrate on rounding up illegals to appease radical right-wing factions in America. Furthermore, we have been told AT THE SAC LEVEL that ANY future staffing increases will be contingent on IMMIGRATION initiiatives (e.g. worksite enforcement), and NOT for drugs, weapons trafficking, money laundering or kiddie porn (by the way, that group (Cyber), in my office, has been DECIMATED to almost ONE-HALF its pre-merger numbers).
Now, in a small office, it is much more likely that an agent will work a smattering of different kinds of cases. However, in major offices, we are definitely trending towards immigration work. And, if the Democrats get into office in November, and immigration enforcement becomes unpopular again, what are we going to do now that we have no staffing, no funding and we’ve given our traditional mission away to other agencies? Twiddle our thumbs, that’s what, which is not a very practical result for a GS-13 that supposed to be paid for conducting COMPLEX CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS.

4EVERCUSTOMS on September 19, 2006 at 8:28 am