Massive cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — operating about the size of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial space in the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation methods, electricity and reinforced partitions, authorities mentioned. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where more than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been found in the final 20 years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medicine, if any, received by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to the investigation.

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, have been charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine. All are Southern California residents.

The tunnel is in one of the vital fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. While thought of efficient towards small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for more sophisticated passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent passage, found Friday, ran one-third of a mile (532 m) to Tijuana. It was 4 ft (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

The kind of medication seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been often present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Laborious drugs, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry large loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that is busy with giant semitrailers throughout the day however quiet at evening. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.

After staking out a house that was recently used to stash drugs, officers started making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes filled with cocaine, based on a federal criminal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different medication at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Authorities have found about 15 subtle tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.

Many tunnels, together with the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the latest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not knowing how long it had been working.

“There is no more light at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities should fill the U.S. aspect of tunnels with concrete after they're found.

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.