Massive cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — running concerning the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial space in the U.S.

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow methods, electrical energy and strengthened walls, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered in the last two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what amount of medicine, if any, obtained by undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

Six folks, ages 31 to 55, had 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 restrictions of border partitions. While thought of effective towards small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

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

The type of drugs seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Laborious medicine, equivalent to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by way of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of with the ability to carry huge masses at lightning pace.

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

After staking out a home that was just lately used to stash medicine, officers began making traffic stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers filled with cocaine, in accordance with a federal prison grievance filed in San Diego.

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

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

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

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineteen Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they are usually found in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not understanding how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no extra mild on the end of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. aspect of tunnels with concrete after they are found.

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.