Washington: A veteran customs official at a US international airport has admitted to have smuggled scores of undocumented immigrants, mostly from India, into the country even in the weeks after the terrorist hijackings of September 11, 2001.

$ 5,000 in cash was the only demand of Otis Rackley of Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

Appearing before US District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh in Newark, Rackley pleaded guilty yesterday (June 30, 2004) to charges that he took the payoffs to sneak aliens, most of them from India, past customs inspectors and into the country.

Over a two-year period, he and his conspirators collected as much as $ 1 million in the scheme, investigators said.

"This individual, he sold out the country," said Kyle Hutchins, the special agent in charge of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.

"He did these sort of things for money and greed, not even thinking of the consequences."