Army Imposter Tries to Infiltrate US

Don’t think that our borders and systems aren’t vulnerable? Check out these photos.

Looks like any other Soldier you’ve seen right? “LTC Rivera” is wearing his Combat Infantry Badge (2nd award, by the way), Master Parachutist, and Air Assault Badge in the right places.

Rivera was wearing a full U.S. Army ACU uniform displaying the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was selected for exam by the CBP Narcotics Unit who was conducting a 100% passport inspection on Avianca Airlines flight 08 from Pereira, Colombia. He stated he works as a security guard and that he was in Colombia to propose to his girlfriend.

When asked about the Army uniform he stated that he went to Colombia to play paintball. However, during the questioning, he had trembling hands, sweat forming on his forehead, he was unable/unwilling to maintain eye contact, and had a pulsating carotid artery along with a continued display of nervous behavior. These are what we call “kinesic indicators of deception.”

So, the agents did a more thorough search of his possessions. During the exam, a set of orders were found which appeared to be authentic. The orders had Rivera’s name, home address, DOB, SSN on them. They appeared to be on authentic U.S. Army letterhead and directed him to report to MacDill AFB in Tampa, FL.

Rivera’s uniform also displayed patches for two different units.
The combat patch was for the 101st Airborne and was supposedly assigned to the 1st Calvary here at Fort Hood.

Thankfully, some highly trained customs agents did their due diligence and acted on their hunches. “LTC Rivera” won’t be coming to the United States and will instead find himself in a pound me in the butt prison somewhere. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the Stolen Valour Act applies to foreigners.