Stephen Greenwell
Lavaca County JP1
U.S. Attorney's Award

Greenwell receives award from U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas

  • Steven Greenwell speaks at the 2022 Veterans Day Services held in his hometown of Moulton, on his time as a U.S. Marine and later, as a special agent with the state department's Homeland Security. he was honored Monday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for one of the last cases he cleared before retiring from the special investigations unit and became Lavaca County's Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace, not long thereafter. Photo by Bobby Horecka
    Steven Greenwell speaks at the 2022 Veterans Day Services held in his hometown of Moulton, on his time as a U.S. Marine and later, as a special agent with the state department's Homeland Security. he was honored Monday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for one of the last cases he cleared before retiring from the special investigations unit and became Lavaca County's Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace, not long thereafter. Photo by Bobby Horecka

    Former Moulton High School graduate Steven Greenwell, a former U.S. Marine, retired Homeland Security special agent and current Lavaca County Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace was honored Monday with a 2023 U.S. Attorney Award.

    Greenwell, and other special agents from HSI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE), a HSI Task Force Officer, a Refugio County Sheriff's Deputy and an assistant United States Attorney, who prosecuted the case, received the award from Alamdar S. Hamdani, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

    Award ceremonies took place in the Michael T. Shelby Conference Room at the Houston office and the award was given to the HSI Victoria Office and others for the exemplary investigative case work that targeted and dismantled a complex criminal weapons trafficking organization. The main criminal activity in the case was illegal arms exportation.

    “The case was a lengthy investigation into a complex criminal organization that purchased weapons and ammunition through straw purchases in the United States and then smuggled those weapons and ammunition into Mexico for a drug cartel,” Greenwell said. “It truly was a great case that frankly saves a lot of lives.”

    Greenwell, who served as a special agent for 25 years and Supervisory Special Agent for 11 of those years as well as the supervisor for the Victoria HSI office, prior to his retirement.

    Greenwell said he and an agent from his former office demonstrated skill and tenacity when they responded to a lead that came as a result of a vehicle stop made by an alert RCSO deputy in the late of night in 2020. He said they then coordinated investigative and enforcement efforts over multiple county lines and cities throughout south Texas in the days, weeks and months that followed.

    “Because of the magnitude of the case, the types of weapons involved, the ammunition and the intended destination of these items, our whole team worked practically around the clock for two weeks or so to ensure the safety of the public,” Greenwell said. “Our lead investigative agent did a fantastic job. I am really proud of him. Our whole team came together and put in an outstanding effort to eliminate the threat this sort of conduct places on our communities as well as to our neighbors to the south.”

    According to Greenwell, the first arrest took place in February 2020 in South Texas and over the next, approximately, two and a half years multiple state and federal arrests occurred with some taking place outside the United States.

    Greenwell said the investigation into the case with the Victoria HSI office serving as the lead investigative agency and later, because of its size and complexity, included HSI and ATF in McAllen, Houston, Mexico as well as the Refugio and Victoria Sheriff's Departments and the Office of the Texas Attorney General.

    Greenwell is a 1987 graduate of Moulton High School and graduated from the University of Texas in 1996.

    He served in the United States Marine Corps with active duty and active reserve duty from 1987 to 1994.

    Greenwell’s duties with Homeland Security Investigations include agent/supervisory special agent as well as a United Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) special agent/U.S. Border Patrol from March 1997 to November 2021.

    Greenwell was elected to the Lavaca County Justice of Peace Pct. 1 chair in June 2022 and presently serves that position.