Massive cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation methods, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been discovered in the last twenty years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what amount of medication, if any, acquired by 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 reference to 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 probably the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. While considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions 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 feet (1.2 m) in diameter and about six tales deep.

The type of medicine seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that have been usually found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Exhausting drugs, equivalent to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small dimension and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of with the ability to carry large masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with large semitrailers during the day however 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 not too long ago used to stash medication, officials began making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers filled with cocaine, in keeping with a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other 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, 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 provide cowl.

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 are generally present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not figuring out how long it had been operating.

“There isn't any more mild on the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.