Big cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — working about the length of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial space within the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation programs, electricity and bolstered walls, authorities stated. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been discovered in the final two decades.

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

Six individuals, 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 limitations of border walls. While thought of efficient in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

The latest passage, discovered 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 type of medicine seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that had been usually found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Laborious medicine, akin 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 tough to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge loads at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that is 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 home that was lately used to stash drugs, officials started making site visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up bins filled with cocaine, in accordance with a federal criminal criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other medication at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Authorities have found 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 space, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cowl.

The cross-border passages date back to the early Nineteen Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they're usually found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There is no such thing as a extra gentle on the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will 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 are discovered.

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.