Big cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a major drug smuggling tunnel — operating in regards to 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 systems, electrical energy and bolstered partitions, authorities stated. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen other refined tunnels have been discovered in the final two decades.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of medicine, if any, obtained via 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 reference to the investigation.

Six folks, 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 partitions. Whereas thought-about effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra refined passages that run deeper underground.

The newest passage, discovered 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 drugs seized may signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Laborious drugs, akin to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled by way of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with massive semitrailers in the course of 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 house that was not too long ago used to stash medication, officials began making traffic stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers full of cocaine, in keeping with a federal legal grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors mentioned.

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

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

The cross-border passages date again to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they are usually found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There is no extra light at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit medication 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.