Big cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow systems, electrical energy and bolstered walls, authorities mentioned. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been discovered within the final 20 years.

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

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, were 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 limitations of border partitions. Whereas thought of effective against small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for more 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 may signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that had been usually present in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Exhausting medication, resembling heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through 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 an advantage of being able to carry big hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with massive semitrailers during 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 lately used to stash drugs, officials began making traffic stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers stuffed with cocaine, in accordance with a federal prison criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different medication at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have discovered about 15 sophisticated 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 area, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cover.

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 stated in 2020 that they're typically present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There is no such thing as a extra gentle on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.