Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — operating concerning the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow programs, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities stated. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered within the last twenty years.

U.S. authorities stated 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 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, had been 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. Whereas thought-about efficient against small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for more sophisticated 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 drugs seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were typically present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Laborious drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by way of 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 with the ability to carry big masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that's busy with giant semitrailers in the course of 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 home that was recently used to stash medication, officials began making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up bins stuffed with cocaine, in response to a federal felony grievance filed in San Diego.

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

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

Many tunnels, including 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 usually present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the most recent tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not figuring out how long it had been operating.

“There is no more mild at the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.