A Border Patrol document unsealed through a Montana court case confirms a unit called PITT flags drivers using financial activity data, then has local police invent an unrelated reason, like an obstructed plate, to make the stop.
Read the full story: Border Patrol Secretly Flags Bank Activity for Traffic Stops →
Transcript
A Montana trooper told driver Kyle Olson he was pulled over for a slightly obstructed license plate. That was not the real reason. A Border Patrol document, revealed this week through his own court case, shows an agent had already flagged Olson over his financial activity patterns, part of a secretive program called PITT, Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams.
Analysts pull financial records, license plate reader hits, and location data into one profile, then pass a tip to local police, who find a separate, legal sounding reason to make the stop. Two Border Patrol sectors are confirmed running this, Spokane and Laredo. Eighteen more are unaccounted for, and CBP won't say what data it's actually watching. The excuse at the window and the real trigger are two very different things.