Massive cross-border tunnel found 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 length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow methods, electricity and strengthened partitions, authorities mentioned. 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 found in the final two decades.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of medicine, if any, got via undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (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 crucial fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. Whereas considered efficient in opposition to small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are not any 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 toes (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

The type of medicine seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been often found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Onerous drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled by means of 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 velocity.

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

After staking out a house that was just lately used to stash medicine, officers started making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers filled with cocaine, in keeping with a federal legal grievance filed in San Diego.

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

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 back to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they are typically present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the newest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not understanding how lengthy it had been working.

“There is no extra light on the end 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 drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.