Large 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 about the size 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 ventilation programs, electricity and reinforced partitions, authorities mentioned. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an area the place greater than a dozen different refined tunnels have been discovered in the last two decades.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been operating and what amount of medicine, if any, received by means of undetected. They seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and three.5 kilos (1.6 kg) of heroin in reference to the investigation.

Six people, 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 restrictions of border walls. While thought-about effective towards small, crudely built tunnels called “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The latest passage, found Friday, ran one-third of a mile (532 m) to Tijuana. It was 4 toes (1.2 m) in diameter and about six stories deep.

The type of drugs seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton loads of marijuana that had been usually found in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Hard medicine, similar to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are usually smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them tough to detect. But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of having the ability to carry huge masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited america in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with giant 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 home that was not too long ago used to stash drugs, officials began making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up containers filled with cocaine, in accordance with a federal prison grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — discovering no different medicine 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 provide cover.

The cross-border passages date again 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 are usually present in California and Arizona and related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to hyperlink the newest tunnel to any particular cartel. They claimed victory despite not understanding how long it had been operating.

“There is no extra gentle on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” mentioned Randy Grossman, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of California. “We'll take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our households and communities.”

By federal regulation, U.S. authorities must fill the U.S. side of tunnels with concrete after they are found.

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Related Press author Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.