Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation systems, electricity and reinforced walls, authorities said. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen different sophisticated tunnels have been discovered within the last two decades.

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

Six individuals, ages 31 to 55, were charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine. All are Southern California residents.

The tunnel is in some of the fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the limitations of border walls. Whereas thought of efficient in opposition to small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” partitions aren't any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The newest passage, found 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 kind of medicine seized might sign 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.

Onerous medication, corresponding to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are sometimes smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry large hundreds at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the USA in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with giant semitrailers in the course of the day however quiet at night time. On Monday, armed guards watched over a small shaft with a ladder that descended into the tunnel.

After staking out a home that was not too long ago used to stash medicine, officers began making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up containers filled with cocaine, based on a federal felony complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no other medication at the warehouse, however a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors said.

Authorities have found about 15 refined 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 again to the early Nineties and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton a great deal of marijuana. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration stated in 2020 that they're typically found in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not knowing how long it had been operating.

“There isn't any more light at the end of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

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

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.