Large cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — operating in regards to the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area within the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation methods, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities mentioned. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where greater than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found in the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of medication, if any, acquired by undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

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

The tunnel is in one of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. Whereas considered effective in opposition to small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

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

The kind of medication seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were typically present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Hard drugs, resembling heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry enormous hundreds at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with massive semitrailers in the course of 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 not too long ago used to stash drugs, officers started making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes stuffed with cocaine, according to a federal felony grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different drugs at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have found about 15 refined 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 space, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cowl.

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 said in 2020 that they're typically present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There isn't a extra gentle at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.