Large cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a major drug smuggling tunnel — operating in regards to the length 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 ventilation techniques, electrical energy and strengthened partitions, authorities said. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered in the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of medication, if any, bought 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 reference to the investigation.

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, were 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 walls. While thought of effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for extra refined passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent 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 tales deep.

The kind of medication seized may sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that were typically found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Hard medicine, resembling heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of with the ability to carry huge masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with massive semitrailers in the course of 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 house that was not too long ago used to stash medication, officers started making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in response to a federal legal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors mentioned.

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 provide cover.

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're usually present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There isn't any more mild at the finish 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 find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.