Massive cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a major drug smuggling tunnel — working concerning the length of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area within the U.S.

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation techniques, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities said. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been found in the last two decades.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medication, if any, bought through undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to 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 one of the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border partitions. While thought of efficient in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The latest 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 drugs seized could signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that were typically present in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Exhausting medication, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of having the ability to carry huge loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with large semitrailers through the day however 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 just lately used to stash medicine, officials began making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins filled with cocaine, based on a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

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

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

Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial space, where 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 loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they're typically found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

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

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they're found.

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.