Large cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday introduced the invention of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — operating in regards to the length of a six football 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 air flow systems, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities mentioned. It was discovered near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen other refined tunnels have been found within the final 20 years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of drugs, if any, received by undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 kilos (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 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 probably the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the constraints of border walls. Whereas considered effective towards small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for more subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent 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 tales deep.

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

Laborious drugs, resembling heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled via official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry big masses at lightning pace.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that is busy with giant 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 just lately used to stash drugs, officers began making site visitors stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up packing containers stuffed with cocaine, in response to a federal felony criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different drugs at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors stated.

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

Many tunnels, together with the one announced Monday, are in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cowl.

The cross-border passages date back to the early Nineteen Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration mentioned in 2020 that they are typically present 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 despite not knowing how long it had been operating.

“There isn't a extra mild at 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 find to maintain illicit medicine from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Associated Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.