Smuggling

Entrenched poverty on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border drive two mothers to desperate acts and dire consequences in "The Girl," David Riker's new drama starring Abbie Cornish. The border town landscape is a world away from "La Cuidad," the writer-director's 1998 feature film debut about Hispanic immigrants in New York. But the filmmaker's focus remains on the increasingly elusive American dream set against the backdrop of immigration. In "The Girl," the director's second film, Riker toggles between two very different disenfranchised groups: the steady stream of humanity trying to survive a Rio Grande river crossing and a single mother in a South Texas town fighting to regain custody of her young son. PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments The story opens in the middle of a confrontation.

Authorities detained 25 people early Monday riding aboard a panga boat that drifted ashore in Rancho Palos Verdes in the early morning dark in what's being investigated as a possible human smuggling operation. Two vans, one registered to a Ventura medical transportation firm, were discovered parked near a winding path leading to the Portuguese Bend shoreline. Authorities described them as possible pickup vehicles. The incident follows a fatal encounter last week off the Santa Barbara coastline in which a Coast Guardsman was killed when two men aboard a panga gunned their engines and struck the vessel he was riding in, tossing him into the ocean.

Twenty California prison employees suspected of smuggling cellphones to inmates have resigned or were fired in recent months, according to a report from the state's prison watchdog agency. Most of those employees were accused of taking the phones in for cash, while others were suspected of doing it for love or something like it, according to the report. One inmate caught with a phone had text messages and nude photos sent by a female guard, the report says. Another inmate was caught with love letters and a childhood photo from a guard accused of providing him the phone.

An undercover FBI agent on a case of weapons smuggling from the Philippines to the United States denied a defense attorney's allegation that he paid for sex for himself and the suspects using taxpayer dollars. The agent, a 16-year veteran who was not identified by name in court documents because he is working undercover in a separate investigation, in a sworn declaration strongly denied allegations of what a public defender contended was "outrageous government misconduct" and should be grounds for the case to be thrown out. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that the government paid for $14,500 in expenses incurred by the agent for entertainment, cocktails and tips over the course of the investigation.

An undercover FBI agent investigating weapon smuggling in the Philippines spent taxpayer dollars to pay for prostitutes for the suspects and himself at a club later raided for hiring underage girls, a defense attorney has alleged in court filings. Federal prosecutors acknowledged in court filings that the government reimbursed the agent for $14,500 for entertainment, cocktails and tips over a period of less than a year in 2010 and 2011 in connection with the case. The expenses included $1,600 on a night out in September 2011 at a club known as Area 51 in Manila.

The masterminds of an international rhinoceros horn smuggling ring pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles federal court to illegal wildlife trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion. The pleas Friday wrapped up the first phase of a nationwide crackdown on the lucrative horn trade to Asia. Vinh Chuong "Jimmy" Kha and Felix Kha, who have been jailed since their homes and import-export business in Garden Grove and Westminster were raided in February, probably face about five more years in prison under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

Imagine the heart of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson beating within the body of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and you'll have a sense of Danish documentarian Mads Brügger. In his 2009 film, "The Red Chapel," he invented a cross-cultural comedy troupe as subterfuge to enter North Korea and examine conditions there. In his latest, "The Ambassador," opening Friday in Los Angeles, Brügger travels to Liberia and the Central African Republic, where, posing as a businessman with a penchant for safari jackets and riding boots, he exposes widespread government corruption and complicity in diamond smuggling.

U.S. border authorities have awarded a $99.9-million contract to a New York-based company to develop a radar system to detect low-flying ultralight aircraft used to smuggle drugs from Mexico. The solo-piloted aircraft that resemble motorized hang gliders are difficult to detect with conventional radar technology and can carry payloads up to 250 pounds. The planes fly slowly above areas from San Diego to Arizona, dropping their loads of marijuana before escaping to Mexico. More than 700 incursions, at least two of which occurred over San Diego's Interstate 8, have been reported since the trend began in 2008.

SAN DIEGO - If you're writing a letter to a prisoner in one of seven jails run by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, you'd best finish it and get it in the mail. After Sept. 1, prisoners will be allowed to receive only postcards and email, no letters, except from their attorneys or other justice system officials. The goal, said Sheriff's Cmdr. Rich Miller, is to reduce the amount of drugs, weapons and other contraband being smuggled into the jails. Among other things, there have been attempts to smuggle hypodermic needles to prisoners in letters, Miller said.

SAN DIEGO - Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who fled to Mexico while under investigation for smuggling hundreds of illegal immigrants into the country were found guilty Friday of multiple counts of conspiracy, bribery and human smuggling. The conviction ends a long-running case that became an example of the pernicious reach of corruption into Border Patrol ranks. Raul Villarreal, 42, was once the face of the agency in the San Diego area, making frequent appearances on Spanish-language television newscasts as a media liaison.