Large cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — operating about the size of a six soccer 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 air flow methods, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities mentioned. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where more than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been found within the final two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medication, if any, acquired by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (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 crucial fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border partitions. Whereas considered effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for more 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 ft (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

The kind of medication seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were often present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Onerous drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small dimension and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry big hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a avenue that's busy with giant semitrailers through 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 medication, officials began making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers filled with cocaine, in keeping with a federal legal grievance 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 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 space, 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 present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not realizing how lengthy it had been operating.

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

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

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.