Large 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 about 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 techniques, electricity and strengthened walls, authorities mentioned. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place more than a dozen different refined tunnels have been found in the final two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medication, if any, received 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 reference to the investigation.

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, have 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 restrictions of border partitions. While considered effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The latest passage, discovered 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 may signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that have been usually found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Arduous drugs, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry big loads at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with large semitrailers throughout 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, officials started making site visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes stuffed with cocaine, according to a federal prison complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different medicine at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors stated.

Authorities have found about 15 refined tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.

Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial space, where 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 typically found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the most recent tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not realizing how long it had been working.

“There isn't a extra light on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medication 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 discovered.

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.