Large 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 — running in regards to the length of a six soccer fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow methods, electrical energy and reinforced walls, authorities stated. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found within the last two decades.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, got through 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 connection with the investigation.

Six folks, ages 31 to 55, were 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 walls. Whereas considered effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels called “gopher holes,” partitions are no match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

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

The kind of medication seized could sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that had been often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Laborious drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small dimension and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry large hundreds at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with giant semitrailers through 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 home that was lately used to stash drugs, officials started making traffic 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 legal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other medicine on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, federal prosecutors stated.

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 cover.

The cross-border passages date back 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're generally 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 regardless of not knowing how lengthy it had been operating.

“There isn't a extra gentle at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

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

___=

Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.