Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation systems, electricity and reinforced walls, authorities said. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been discovered within the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, received by undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to the investigation.

Six folks, ages 31 to 55, have 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. Whereas considered efficient against small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for extra refined passages that run deeper underground.

The latest passage, found 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 kind of drugs seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been usually present in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Arduous medicine, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of having the ability to carry enormous masses at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with large semitrailers through the day but 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 recently used to stash drugs, officials started making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers filled with cocaine, in response to a federal criminal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different medication on 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, together with the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial space, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cowl.

The cross-border passages date back to the early Nineties 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're typically 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 long it had been operating.

“There isn't any more light on the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. aspect of tunnels with concrete after they're discovered.

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.