Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — working in regards to the size of a six soccer 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 techniques, electricity and strengthened partitions, authorities mentioned. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where more than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered within the final two decades.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what quantity of drugs, if any, got by undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 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 some of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. While considered effective in opposition to small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for extra refined passages that run deeper underground.

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

The type of medication seized could signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been typically present in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Exhausting drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by way of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small measurement and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry big masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with large semitrailers in the course of 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 lately used to stash medicine, officers started making site visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in response to a federal prison grievance filed in San Diego.

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

Authorities have discovered about 15 refined 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 Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they're generally present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory despite not figuring out how long it had been operating.

“There isn't a extra gentle on the end of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities should fill the U.S. facet of tunnels with concrete after they are found.

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.