Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the invention of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — working in regards to 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 strengthened walls, authorities mentioned. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place more than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been discovered within the final twenty years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what amount of drugs, if any, acquired by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (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 some of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border walls. While thought of effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent passage, discovered 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 medication seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were usually found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Laborious medicine, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them tough to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with large semitrailers through 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 house that was just lately used to stash medicine, officials began making visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes filled with cocaine, according to a federal legal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Authorities have discovered about 15 refined tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.

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

The cross-border passages date back 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 said in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the newest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not understanding how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no extra light on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.