Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation systems, electrical energy and bolstered walls, authorities stated. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen other refined tunnels have been discovered in the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what amount of drugs, if any, bought by 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 limitations of border partitions. Whereas considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for extra sophisticated 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 stories deep.

The kind of drugs seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been typically found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Hard medicine, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled by official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry enormous hundreds at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is busy with massive semitrailers through the day however quiet at night. 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 started making site visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins filled with cocaine, according to a federal legal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other medication on the warehouse, however 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 announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cowl.

The cross-border passages date again to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads 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 latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not figuring out how long it had been working.

“There is no more light at the end 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 drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. facet of tunnels with concrete after they're discovered.

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.