Feds: South Texas official ran smuggling scheme with wife, paid Mexican bribes

A McAllen city commissioner and his wife are facing federal criminal charges for allegedly laundering money and smuggling goods into the country illegally.

Federal prosecutors announced the charges against Rodolfo “Rudy” Castillo, 55, who serves as the District 4 commissioner representing McAllen’s southside, and his wife, Bertha Castillo, 57, in court documents filed on Friday and Thursday, respectively. In addition to the money laundering and goods smuggling charges, Bertha Castillo has also been separately charged with bringing in and harboring aliens.

Rudy Castillo was first elected to the McAllen City Commission in a 2022 special election and was reelected in May 2023.

The couple are accused of illegally hiring undocumented migrants and smuggling goods through their business, Oro Ropa Usada, a used clothing warehouse located along South 23rd Street in McAllen, approximately five miles from the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, which they’ve owned and operated for about 20 years.

Further, federal prosecutors allege that Rudy Castillo paid bribes to members of an “incorruptible” Mexican law enforcement agency in order “to facilitate uninterrupted transport” of the smuggled goods. Investigators allegedly captured Rudy Castillo admitting to the bribe payments during a recorded WhatsApp voice call with a confidential informant on August 8.

“Specifically, Castillo mentioned paying 20,000 pesos to Harfuch’s police department, a newly implemented police force in Mexico that is reportedly incorruptible,” reads the four-page criminal complaint against Rudy Castillo. That’s equal to about $1,087 in American currency.

“Harfuch” refers to Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar Garcia Harfuch, who founded “an elite police force focused on combating organized crime,” the complaint reads. Rudy Castillo allegedly added that the high-level Mexican politician likely has no knowledge of the bribes Castillo allegedly paid the lower-level workers of the police force.

Prosecutors further allege that Rudy and his wife, Bertha, worked in tandem on the smuggling scheme, with Rudy allegedly managing the process to ship loads of used clothing into Mexico, while Bertha managed the sales. The criminal complaints against the pair detail an intricate investigation into their alleged smuggling operation, including conversations recorded between Bertha Castillo and an undercover agent on August 26, as well as an in-person meeting with the couple at Oro Ropa Usada. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents surveilled the couple’s home and their movements from a helicopter as investigators “carried out an operation to purchase used clothing from them,” during which Bertha Castillo allegedly accepted a cash payment of just over $20,000.

The covert surveillance continued well into September, eventually resulting in the seizure of a tractor-trailer loaded with used clothing at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge. The truck driver told investigators he had been transporting the load at the behest of Rudy Castillo and that he did not have the proper export documentation for the load.

News of the investigation into the couple first reported by ValleyCentral.com on Thursday, October 2. According to the report, Homeland Security Investigations agents — an investigatory branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — simultaneously executed search warrants at the couple’s South McAllen home and at Oro Ropa Usada on Thursday.

It now appears that the couple’s arrest was part of a broader law enforcement operation into ropa usada businesses across McAllen. At the same time ICE agents descended on the Castillos, other teams raided at least five other ropa usada warehouses, according to federal court documents filed in about two dozen separate cases between Thursday and Friday. That includes Jem’s Textil (sic) Recycling, Cardenas General Merchandise, Moonrise Trading Corporation, Trebol De Oro and Tres Dimensiones Ropa Usada.

MySA arrived at Tres Dimensiones Ropa Usada shortly after the agents left. The business, which is one of several ropa usada businesses housed within a single warehouse on South 23rd Street, just across the highway from the border wall, was mostly quiet as the sun set Thursday. But a handful of people lingered outside. They were there looking for family members and friends who had been taken into custody by ICE and transported away in several charter buses. None of the people who remained outside the warehouse agreed to talk to MySA, citing their fears of immigration officials.

Meanwhile, the city of McAllen sought to distance itself from the ongoing federal criminal investigation.

“These operations are solely the work of federal agencies and are not related to the City of McAllen in any capacity,” city officials said in a statement. “The City does not have any knowledge of, participation with, or connection to the activities under investigation. These matters are wholly independent of the City’s operations, duties, and functions.”

MySA reached out to ICE, as well as Rick Salinas, the attorney representing Rudy Castillo, for comment about the charges. Neither responded by the time of publication.