Huge cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the invention of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — operating concerning the length 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 systems, electrical energy and strengthened walls, authorities said. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where more than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been discovered in the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what quantity of drugs, if any, obtained by undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

Six folks, 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 limitations of border partitions. Whereas considered effective against small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

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

The kind of medicine seized could signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were typically found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Exhausting drugs, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that's busy with giant semitrailers throughout 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 just lately used to stash drugs, officials began making traffic stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in line with a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

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

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 space, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cover.

The cross-border passages date back 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 are typically present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the newest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not knowing how long it had been working.

“There is no such thing as a extra mild on the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must 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.