Big cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — running concerning the size of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial space within the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow systems, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities mentioned. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different subtle tunnels have been discovered within the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of drugs, if any, received by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 kilos (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 restrictions of border walls. Whereas thought of effective towards small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent 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 stories deep.

The kind of medication seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that have been usually present in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Exhausting medicine, comparable to 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 difficult to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry large loads at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that is busy with massive 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 not too long ago used to stash medication, officers began making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers full of cocaine, based on a federal criminal grievance 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 stated.

Authorities have found about 15 subtle 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, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present 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 are typically present 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 regardless of not realizing how lengthy it had been operating.

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

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must 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.