Large cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — working about the size of a six soccer 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 techniques, electrical energy and bolstered walls, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been found in the last twenty years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of drugs, if any, obtained through undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

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

The tunnel is in one of the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the restrictions of border partitions. Whereas thought of efficient towards small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

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

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

Laborious drugs, similar to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small measurement and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry enormous hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with giant semitrailers through the day but 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 home that was not too long ago used to stash medicine, officials began making visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up bins filled with cocaine, in response to a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different drugs on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have found about 15 subtle 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, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present 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 typically present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not realizing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities should fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they're discovered.

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.