Attention to detail.
A prior service US Marine, one of whom is a plainclothes Border Patrol agent, spotted something wrong with the fake military vehicle before it had even reached a checkpoint. He radioed ahead to insure that the vehicle received a close inspection.
Another prior service US Marine noticed that their driver didn't seem to understand English, and that two of the illegals had the same name tag of "Lopez", and that some of the group was wearing desert camouflage uniforms and others were wearing urban camouflage uniforms. And they didn't know the birthday of the USMC, which is taught to every Marine.
The van with the words "U.S. Government, For official use only" on the license plate seemed suspicious. What's more, one of the numbers reflected light differently when Smith's headlights shined on it, and a zero digit had been altered to look like the number 8.
The illegal aliens had been coached to say that they were traveling from Yuma Air Force Base, or "Joint Service Base".
Now the question has become were they just trying to cross the border, or was there more serious criminal intent in mind? To discover this, the Border Patrol has been joined with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). |