Customs agent gets 2.5 years in prison for aiding drug cartel


Jovana Deas was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. She looked up unauthorized information in ICE databases for a sister who had drug cartel ties who then passed some of it on to her husband.

Later, Brazilian police found the same information that Deas printed out on the laptop of [her sister’s] ex-husband, Mendoza-Estrada, who was living in Brazil. Later yet, on Aug. 26, 2010, Chavez-Sagredo was killed execution style by men who burst into a restaurant in Ciudad Juárez

Deas was a huge success story. She learned English at college, graduated with honors, and became a ICE agent. But then she began funneling information to her crime-linked family. Illegally accessing databases as she did is indeed a criminal offense and not just in ICE but in most of the government as well. The government never claimed that her leaking information led directly to the murder.

ICE press release. Feb. 7 2012

At the hearing, Deas admitted that she illegally accessed, stole and transferred sensitive U.S. government documents to unauthorized individuals and obstructed HSI investigations. She admitted to abusing her position as a special agent to illegally obtain and disseminate government documents classified as “For Official Use Only.”

The big question is, did she do it as a favor to her family or was she allied with a drug cartel all along? She became a special agent in 2007 and was investigating drug traffickers. ICE is scrambling to determine just what she knew and how how much information she sent on.

Deas was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison on Friday. Her sister was also charged and is a fugitive believed to be in Mexico.

2 Comments

  1. “Deas was a huge success story. She learned English at college, graduated with honors, and became a ICE agent. But then she began funneling information to her crime-linked family…”

    She was taking care of her family, taking care of what matters.

    “Liberal” outrage is misplaced.

    • I should have said she was “outwardly a huge success story” at the upwardly mobile route.

      The more I think about this, the more obvious it becomes that she was connected all along.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.