San Ysidro

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been arrested in the sale of about a pound of marijuana, San Diego police said Tuesday.

Albert Alan Bailey, 25, was arrested at his San Ysidro home Friday evening after police served a search warrant there. He was charged with possession of marijuana for sale.

Border Patrol spokesman Ted Swofford, citing the agency’s policy of not identifying agents accused of criminal activity, would not disclose the agent’s name. However, the San Diego Police Department provided Bailey’s name and age.

Swofford said the agent had been suspended with pay until he is formally notified in writing that he will be suspended without pay.

The agent was assigned to the agency’s San Ysidro headquarters and was off-duty at the time of his arrest, Swofford said.

The investigation of the alleged marijuana sale, conducted by San Diego police and the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, is continuing, according to Lt. Greg Clark, head of the Police Department’s narcotics street team.

Bailey is free on bail and is awaiting arraignment, said Swofford, who noted that he could not recall a single other instance of an agent being arrested over drug involvement.

Though the Border Patrol’s primary mission remains the detention of foreign nationals illegally in the United States, the agency has taken an increasingly larger role in drug interdiction in recent years.