Border Patrol runs predictive policing units that route financial-data intelligence into local police stops
U.S. Border Patrol is operating secretive predictive policing units, called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams, that analyze Americans' financial activity and other data and pass that intelligence to local police, who pull over people not suspected of any specific crime.
What happened
404 Media reported on 2026-09-08 that Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units — named publicly for the first time as Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT) — which analyze Americans' financial activity and other data and feed that intelligence to local police, who pull over people the government thinks may be worth searching. The people stopped are not suspected of any particular crime. 404 Media identified one PITT in the Spokane Sector, Washington and another in the Laredo Sector, Texas; Border Patrol operates 20 sectors, and CBP declined to say whether any others have them. In one documented case, a DHS document produced in discovery showed a Spokane Sector PITT agent reviewed "law enforcement-sensitive databases" and observed "financial activity patterns commonly associated with illicit narcotics activity" for a driver crossing Montana, then passed that to a Montana Highway Patrol sergeant, who stopped the driver on an obstructed-plate pretext. CBP said Border Patrol "uses intelligence-informed analysis and planning to support national security operations" and declined to say what financial activity it monitors or whether it obtains a warrant. The findings extend an Associated Press investigation of 2025-11-20 into the same programme's use of automatic license plate readers. The source establishes an ongoing programme and dates no single act; this row carries the disclosure date.
Why it matters
Financial-activity analysis that ends in a roadside stop moves surveillance capacity away from investigating suspected crimes and toward selecting people for search in advance. A unit its discoverers describe as secretive is one the public cannot contest, budget against or litigate, which is what makes the existence of the capability, rather than any single stop, the thing worth recording.