Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — working about the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area within the U.S.

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow systems, electrical energy and bolstered partitions, authorities mentioned. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found within the final two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what amount of medicine, if any, bought through undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

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

The tunnel is in one of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. Whereas thought of effective against small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions are no match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

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

The kind of medicine seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were often found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Laborious medication, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of having the ability to carry huge hundreds at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street 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 house that was just lately used to stash drugs, officers began making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins full of cocaine, in accordance with a federal prison complaint filed in San Diego.

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

Authorities have discovered 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 cowl.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineteen Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they are usually found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory despite not knowing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There isn't a extra light at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.