Large cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — operating concerning 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 systems, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities said. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been discovered in the last two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of medication, if any, bought 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 individuals, ages 31 to 55, had been 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 restrictions of border walls. While thought of effective in opposition to small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions are not any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The newest 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 kind of drugs seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that had been typically found in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Arduous drugs, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry enormous loads at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with giant semitrailers in the course of the day but quiet at night time. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.

After staking out a home that was recently used to stash medication, officers began making traffic stops of vehicles 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 — finding no other medication on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have found about 15 refined tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006.

Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial space, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cowl.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineties 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 typically present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not knowing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There is no more light at the end 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 discover to keep illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.