Large cross-border tunnel discovered linking Tijuana, San Diego

SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a serious drug smuggling tunnel — working concerning the size of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow techniques, electrical energy and strengthened walls, authorities stated. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space the place greater than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been discovered in the final 20 years.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how long the tunnel had been operating and what quantity of drugs, if any, bought by way of undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to the investigation.

Six folks, ages 31 to 55, had 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 limitations of border walls. While considered effective in opposition to small, crudely constructed tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls aren't any match for extra 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 ft (1.2 m) in diameter and about six tales deep.

The kind of drugs seized may signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been often found in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Onerous medicine, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small measurement and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry huge loads at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that is busy with large semitrailers in the course of 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 drugs, officers started making visitors stops of autos that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes stuffed with cocaine, in response to a federal prison criticism filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different medication on the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, federal prosecutors mentioned.

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 area, the place clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cowl.

The cross-border passages date again to the early Nineteen 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 associated with 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 more gentle on the end of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to maintain illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities must 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.