Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow methods, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities said. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered within the final two decades.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, got by way of 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 folks, ages 31 to 55, had 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 limitations of border walls. Whereas thought-about effective against small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for extra refined 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 type of medication seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that had been usually found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Onerous medication, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by way of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge hundreds at lightning speed.

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

After staking out a house that was not too long ago used to stash medicine, officers started making visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes stuffed with cocaine, according to a federal legal grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other medicine at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, 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 area, 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 a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they're usually present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There isn't a more mild at the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. legal professional for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.