Massive cross-border tunnel discovered 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 area within the U.S.

The key passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and air flow methods, electricity and reinforced partitions, authorities said. It was found close to San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where greater than a dozen other refined tunnels have been found in the final two decades.

U.S. authorities mentioned it was unknown how lengthy the tunnel had been working and what quantity of medication, if any, obtained by way 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 folks, ages 31 to 55, have 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 constraints of border walls. Whereas considered efficient against small, crudely built tunnels known as “gopher holes,” walls are no match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The latest 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 type of medication seized might sign a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been usually present in discoveries before California legalized pot for leisure use in 2019.

Onerous medicine, comparable to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled by means of official border crossings from Mexico as a result of their small dimension and lack of odor make them troublesome to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of being able to carry big masses at lightning speed.

The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a street that's busy with giant semitrailers in the course of the day but 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 medication, officials started making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse close to the border, turning up bins filled with cocaine, in line with a federal legal grievance filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no different drugs on the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement flooring, 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, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses present cover.

The cross-border passages date back to the early 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 related to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

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

“There isn't a more gentle on the finish of this narco-tunnel,” stated Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are going to take down each subterranean smuggling route we discover to maintain illicit medication from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.”

By federal law, U.S. authorities should fill the U.S. aspect of tunnels with concrete after they are found.

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Related Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.