Big cross-border tunnel found 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 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 ventilation methods, electricity and strengthened partitions, authorities stated. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been discovered within the final twenty years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what amount of medication, if any, obtained by means of 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 folks, ages 31 to 55, were 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 restrictions of border walls. Whereas considered efficient against small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra 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 toes (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

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

Onerous medication, reminiscent of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry big hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street 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 home that was just lately used to stash drugs, officers began making visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in line with a federal prison complaint 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 said.

Authorities have found 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, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover.

The cross-border passages date again to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the most recent tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not knowing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no such thing as a more gentle at the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.