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 in regards to 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 air flow programs, electrical energy and strengthened partitions, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place more than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been found in the last twenty years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, obtained via 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, have been charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine. All are Southern California residents.

The tunnel is in one of the crucial fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border partitions. Whereas considered effective against small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra sophisticated passages that run deeper underground.

The latest passage, found 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 drugs seized could signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that were usually present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Hard medicine, 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 troublesome to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry large masses at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that's busy with giant semitrailers during 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 lately used to stash medicine, officers started making traffic stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes stuffed with cocaine, according to a federal legal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other medicine at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors stated.

Authorities have discovered about 15 sophisticated 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 provide cover.

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 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 despite not understanding how long it had been operating.

“There is no more light at the end 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 find to maintain illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.