bersin, then we will hear from the next witness, charles edwards.s the acting inspector general of the department of homeland security. thank you very much for being here. we have a timing system today, and i think we are doing five minutes on the opening statement. so if you keep your store five minutes we will submit written statements for the record so those will be made part of the record but we look forward to hearing from you and we look forward to good discussion afterwards. >> good morning mr. chairman. ranking member paulson, it is an important day for me to appear before you today to update the progress on the border protection is making to combat the corruption and maintain integrity within the work force. senator pryor, you and this committee has been an important force in getting recognized the threat that we face on the u.s.-mexican border and generally in terms of the men and women of the cdp now 60,000 strong 48,000 on the front line and the borders. if you recognize and we emphasize the commitment bravery vigilance character demonst

edwards. >> good morning, chairman pryor, ranking member paul, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, i'm charles k. edwards, acting inspector general for the department of homeland security. thank you for inviting me today to testify about our role in the effort to eliminate corruption in the c.b.p. work force, a threat that strikes at the foundation of securing our nation's borders. the smuggling of people and goods across the nation's borders is a large-scale business dominated by organized criminal enterprises. the mexican drug cartels today are more sophisticated and dangerous than any other organized criminal group. they use torture and brutality to control their members, and intimidate or eliminate those who may be witnesses or informants to their activities. the drug trafficking organizations turn to corrupting employees. border corruption impacts national security. a corrupt employee may accept a bribe for allowing what appeared to be undocumented aliens into the u.s. while unwittingly helping terrorists enter the country. likewise, what seems to be drug contraband, could be weapons of m

drug cartels, allowing drugs and illegal immigrants through inspection line, testifying before charles edwardder and customs agents have been drived with cash and list ton this, sexual favors. edward said that a total of 127 agents have been arrested or indicts for acts of corruption, including drug smuggling, alien smuggling, money laundering and conspiracy with organized crime. the corruption against agents have been going on since 2004. last year the inspector general's office launled a record 870 probes against agents acting suspiciously. alan berson told the senate that the government is doing everything in its power to root out corruption. >> we recognize that there are bad apples in the barrel and it is our job to minimize those. it is our job to prevent corruption, protect it when it happens, prosecute it after investigating it, with -- in concert with other federal agencies and the united states attorney's office and the department of justice. >> as an example, bersin spoke about an agent who is serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty after conspiring to smuggle 121 kilogram

goes in empty handed to what the us bank saying christmas is charles to get health care put up or its parts he thought. russian writer edward get off or disappeared and will go for almost a week it has turned up in jail the author is suspected of the rise of mass protests in two thousand and nine against the results of the country's parliamentary elections nazis cattleman's of a story. written off russian writer the wife by you know was last seen on june sixteenth in the moldovan capital kitchen now. a week later it's turned out that he had been detained by local authorities for allegedly masterminding public riots in april two thousand and nine and then thousands of unhappy moldovans took to the streets protesting the results of the country's parliamentary elections opposition leaders accused the ruling communist party of falsifying votes by give himself frequently stated that he was in fact one of the organizers of the unrest but until now not many people took him seriously. i know he was the moldova when the riots with taking place he doesn't deny that fact there anything but as far as organizing the riots were taking pa