Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow techniques, electrical energy and strengthened partitions, authorities said. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen other subtle tunnels have been discovered within the last twenty years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medicine, if any, obtained by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (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 most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. While considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for more refined passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent passage, discovered 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 medicine seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that were usually present in discoveries earlier than California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Hard medicine, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. But tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry huge loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's 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 house that was just lately used to stash medication, officials began making site visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers full of cocaine, in accordance with a federal felony criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors said.

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

Many tunnels, including the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, the place 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 loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2020 that they're typically found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the most recent tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not understanding how lengthy it had been operating.

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

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

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.