It was ‘incredibly easy' for customs officer to fly cocaine ‘bricks' to GA, feds say

Miami Herald

4 days ago

A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer convicted of smuggling 16 'bricks' of cocaine inside his carry-on bags has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.
Ivan Van Beverhoudt was traveling in his official capacity when he boarded an Atlanta-bound flight in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands with cocaine stashed inside a red roller bag and black handbag in January 2020, according to federal court filings, McClatchy News previously reported.
He bypassed a TSA security screening in St. Thomas because he checked in with his CBP credentials and had his CBP-issued firearm, which was loaded, according to court documents and prosecutors.
'(Van Beverhoudt's) position as a CBP officer made it incredibly easy for him to smuggle drugs across the United States' borders, as he could simply board the plane with the drugs undetected,' reads a sentencing memo written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bethany L. Rupert, for the Northern District of Georgia.
After Van Beverhoudt arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a CBP K-9 alerted its handler to him and his bags, according to court documents. Then his fellow officers escorted Van Beverhoudt to a CBP interview room, where they found the cocaine, court documents say.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee handed the 20-year sentence to Van Beverhoudt, 45, of St. Thomas, on July 8, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a July 9 news release.
Van Beverhoudt had retained defense attorneys Bruce S. Harvey and Stephen M. Katz to represent him in the case. They did not immediately return McClatchy News' request for comment July 10.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said 'Van Beverhoudt betrayed his badge by committing one of the very crimes he was entrusted to prevent — smuggling dangerous drugs into our country.'
At the end of a five-day jury trial in February, Van Beverhoudt was found guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S., importation of cocaine into the U.S., conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
In a sentencing memo on his behalf, Harvey noted that Van Beverhoudt was acquitted of a gun charge.
Prior flights to the US
The government suspects Van Beverhoudt smuggled drugs into the U.S. on several occasions before he was caught with cocaine in Atlanta on Jan. 10, 2020.
Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations learned that in 2019, Van Beverhoudt flew to the U.S. eight different times in his official capacity as a CBP officer, the sentencing memorandum says.
He is accused of working with another man he had a history of communicating with to deliver drugs to Baltimore in 2019.
'HSI concluded that (Van Beverhoudt) had regularly been delivering narcotics to Baltimore,' Rupert wrote in the sentencing memo.
'On each of these trips, (he) carried a firearm with him, so that he could bypass TSA security as a law enforcement officer flying while armed,' the filing says.
Van Beverhoudt was investigated by HSI, CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
ICE and CBP are among multiple agencies that fall under DHS.