Big cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow techniques, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found within 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, acquired by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

Six people, ages 31 to 55, had been charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine. All are Southern California residents.

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

The most recent passage, found Friday, ran one-third of a mile (532 m) to Tijuana. It was 4 toes (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

The kind of medicine seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that had been often present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Onerous medicine, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry large hundreds at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with massive 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 house that was not too long ago used to stash medication, officers started making traffic stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up boxes full of cocaine, based on a federal felony complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Authorities have discovered about 15 sophisticated 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 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 are usually found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the newest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not knowing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no such thing as a extra light on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.