Massive cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the invention of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — operating about the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area within the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow programs, electricity and strengthened walls, authorities mentioned. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different refined tunnels have been found within the final twenty years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, received by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to the investigation.

Six folks, 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 constraints of border partitions. Whereas thought of effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The latest 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 tales deep.

The kind of medication seized may signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been typically present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Laborious medicine, reminiscent of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry enormous hundreds at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with massive semitrailers through 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 lately used to stash medicine, officials started making visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes filled with cocaine, in keeping with a federal legal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different medication on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors stated.

Authorities have discovered about 15 subtle 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, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cover.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineteen Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they're usually present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the most recent tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory despite not understanding how lengthy it had been working.

“There isn't a extra light on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal legislation, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they are discovered.

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.