Massive cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation programs, electricity and strengthened partitions, authorities mentioned. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been found within the final two decades.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, bought through undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with the investigation.

Six people, ages 31 to 55, had 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 restrictions of border partitions. Whereas considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for more sophisticated 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 stories deep.

The type of medicine seized may sign a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that had been often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Arduous medication, equivalent to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry enormous loads at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with large semitrailers throughout the day however 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 medicine, officials started making visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up containers full of cocaine, in response to a federal felony grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different medicine at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors stated.

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

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 said in 2020 that they're typically present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There is no more gentle on the end 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 law, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they're discovered.

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.