Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — running concerning the size of a six football 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 programs, electricity and reinforced walls, authorities stated. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been found within the final 20 years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, obtained by way of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (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 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 vital fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border partitions. While thought-about effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for extra sophisticated passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent 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 stories deep.

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

Hard medicine, similar to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry huge masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that is busy with giant semitrailers throughout 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 home that was just lately used to stash medication, officials began making site visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes full of cocaine, based on a federal criminal grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other medicine at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have discovered 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, where 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 a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they're usually present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the most recent tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not knowing how lengthy it had been working.

“There isn't a extra gentle on the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated 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 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.