Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation techniques, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities mentioned. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place more than a dozen different subtle tunnels have been found within the last 20 years.

U.S. authorities stated it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what amount of medication, if any, bought by way of undetected. They seized 1,762 kilos (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 kilos (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 walls. Whereas thought of effective towards small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” partitions 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 stories deep.

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

Arduous medication, reminiscent of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry huge loads at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that is busy with giant semitrailers in the course of 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 home that was recently used to stash drugs, officers began making visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins full of cocaine, based on a federal criminal grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering 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, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover.

The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s 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 present in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There isn't any more gentle at the end of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will 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 found.

___=

Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.