Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the invention of a significant drug smuggling tunnel — working concerning the size of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial space in the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation techniques, electricity and strengthened partitions, authorities said. It was discovered close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area where more than a dozen different refined tunnels have been found in the final twenty years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what amount of medication, if any, obtained through undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and three.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in connection with 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 one of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border partitions. Whereas thought-about efficient in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are no match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The newest passage, found Friday, ran one-third of a mile (532 m) to Tijuana. It was 4 ft (1.2 m) in diameter and about six tales deep.

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

Exhausting drugs, equivalent to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small size and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry enormous loads 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 during the day but 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 lately used to stash drugs, officers began making traffic stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers full of cocaine, in accordance with a federal legal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other drugs 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, including the one introduced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, the place 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 loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the newest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory despite not figuring out how lengthy it had been working.

“There isn't any more light on the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated 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 drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.