Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — working 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 techniques, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities said. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where greater than a dozen other refined tunnels have been discovered in the final twenty years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medication, 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 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

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

The tunnel is in one of the crucial fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border partitions. While thought-about efficient in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

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

The kind of medication seized could signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that had been usually present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Laborious drugs, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico because their small dimension and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of with the ability to carry huge masses at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that is busy with large semitrailers throughout the day however quiet at night. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.

After staking out a home that was lately used to stash drugs, officials started making traffic stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins full of cocaine, based on a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other medicine on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors stated.

Authorities have found about 15 sophisticated tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.

Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover.

The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they're generally present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not knowing how long it had been working.

“There isn't any more gentle at the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.