Massive cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation techniques, electrical energy and strengthened partitions, authorities stated. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where more than a dozen different subtle tunnels have been found in the last 20 years.

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

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

The tunnel is in probably the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the restrictions of border walls. While considered effective against small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra 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 ft (1.2 m) in diameter and about six tales deep.

The type of drugs seized may signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Hard medication, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry big loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's 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 house that was recently used to stash drugs, officials started making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, according to a federal prison grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different drugs on 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 introduced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial space, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cover.

The cross-border passages date again to the early 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 generally 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 knowing how long it had been working.

“There is no such thing as a extra gentle on the end of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they are discovered.

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.