Fbi Looking For Bogus Border Patrol Agent Suspect Detained Okanogan County Woman For 90 Minutes While He Searched Her Car

The FBI released a composite drawing Monday in the hope of apprehending a suspect who recently posed as a Border Patrol agent to detain an Okanogan County woman for 1-1/2 hours while he searched her vehicle.

The incident occurred about 4 p.m. Sept. 26 on a rural mountain road near Chesaw, about 15 miles east of Oroville and just a few miles from the Canadian border. Authorities say the woman was driving to Oroville when an oncoming vehicle did a U-turn and stopped her with a dash-mounted flashing blue light.

The bogus officer was driving a battered old sport utility vehicle, but wore a makeshift uniform and flashed a badge. He told the woman he was a Border Patrol agent acting on an anonymous tip that she had just left an area used by drug smugglers.

The man ransacked the woman’s car for 90 minutes before releasing her without taking anything. She didn’t find out until several days later that he was an impostor.

Investigators don’t know what motivated the suspect.

“He might have been hoping to intercept someone with drugs and steal the drugs,” said Richard Graham, the agent in charge of the Oroville Border Patrol office. “Or he might have had wannabe-cop intentions - or real bad intentions, with the victim being a female.”

But Graham said the suspect made no threats or sexual advances.

The masquerade was discovered when a real Border Patrol agent read a letter to the editor of the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune. A friend of the victim complained in the letter that the lengthy search was “totally unreasonable” - especially considering that the victim is a well-regarded school and civic volunteer.

The search “made an innocent woman very upset and feel completely violated,” Oroville High School volleyball coach Pam Leslie said in the letter.

Graham launched an investigation as soon as he read the letter. Graham said all his agents were in a training session at the time of the incident, and he quickly discovered no other federal or local law enforcement officer was responsible.

At Graham’s request, an Okanogan County sheriff’s officer interviewed the victim and found that the man who detained her was an impostor. Although the man flashed a badge and appeared to carry a pistol in a closed holster, his equipment and methods didn’t match those of any police agency.

The dash-mounted blue “bubble light” he used to stop the victim was one of the first clues, Graham said. Real police in Okanogan County don’t use them.

“You see them on TV a lot, but they’re not much good,” Graham said. “As soon as you take off, they fly off the roof or slide across the dash.”

Federal, state and local officers in Okanogan County all use roof-mounted or built-in emergency lights.

Also, Graham said undercover officers don’t stop people when they’re driving battered old vehicles, such as the one the suspect used. The phony agent was driving a white late 1970s or early 1980s Ford Bronco or Chevrolet Blazer with a dented door and a bent bumper.

The suspect wore a “mock uniform,” Graham said. “I would call it an old military-type uniform, maybe from another country.”

He said the victim described the suspect as a slender white man in his mid- to late 20s, who is 5 feet 8 or 9 inches tall. The suspect has blond hair and hazel eyes that have more yellow than green.

The FBI agent handling the case declined to comment, but Graham said agents “have some leads and are running them down.”

An initial report that the case might be related to reports of phony Forest Service agents in Ferry County, near Wauconda, proved false. Graham said the suspected Forest Service impostors turned out to be real.

Meanwhile, he said legitimate officers have increased their patrols in the area and are on the lookout for the suspect vehicle.

“It’s kind of an unusual vehicle,” Graham said. “We should be able to find it.”