Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the discovery of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — running about the length 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 programs, electricity and strengthened walls, authorities said. It was found near 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 two decades.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what amount of medicine, if any, bought by undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (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, have 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. Whereas considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for extra sophisticated passages that run deeper underground.

The newest 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 type of medicine seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been typically present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Arduous drugs, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry big loads at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with large semitrailers during the day but quiet at evening. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.

After staking out a house that was recently used to stash drugs, officers started making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in accordance with a federal prison criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other medication on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors stated.

Authorities have found 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 area, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cowl.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineteen 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 typically 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 working.

“There is no more gentle at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.