A Bellingham man was sentenced Friday, Feb. 10, to one year in prison for trying to sell a map of surveillance cameras at the U.S.-Canada border.
Leif Rankin, 32, was arrested in September 2011 when he tried to contact smugglers who might be interested in buying a map of sensors and cameras along the border near Blaine, according to court records.
Rankin tried to sell the map for $10,000 but agreed to part with it for $6,000 when he got an offer from a man who claimed to be a drug smuggler. The potential buyer was actually an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent.
Rankin told the agent he stole the map from a garage sale at the home of a Border Patrol agent; in fact, the map had been discovered by one of Rankin's friends, who is unnamed in a probable cause statement.
The friend, who was later interviewed in jail by federal agents, had purchased a large box of cables at a garage sale several months earlier. At the bottom of the box he found the government documents. He gave them to Rankin and told him to look for potential buyers.
When Rankin's meeting with the federal agent ended, Rankin and the agent agreed "to meet in the future and engage in drug trafficking together," according to court records. Agents then moved in to arrest Rankin, who was shot with a Taser as he tried to run away.
Rankin pleaded guilty in November 2011 to theft of government property. He was sentenced Friday to one year in prison and three years of supervised release.
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