Huge cross-border tunnel found linking Tijuana, San Diego

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

The secret passage from Tijuana to San Diego featured rail and ventilation methods, electricity and bolstered partitions, authorities said. It was found near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border crossing in an space where more than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been discovered in the final 20 years.

U.S. authorities said it was unknown how long the tunnel had been working and what amount of drugs, if any, bought by means of 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 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 one of the most fortified stretches of the border, illustrating the restrictions of border partitions. Whereas thought of efficient towards small, crudely built tunnels referred to as “gopher holes,” walls are not any match for extra subtle passages that run deeper underground.

The most recent 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 kind of medication seized might signal a shift from the multi-ton a great deal of marijuana that have been often present in discoveries before California legalized pot for recreational use in 2019.

Exhausting drugs, similar to heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl, are typically smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small measurement and lack of odor make them tough to detect. However tunnels give smugglers a bonus of with the ability to carry large hundreds at lightning velocity.

The tunnel exited the United States in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park” on a road that's busy with large 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 home that was not too long ago used to stash drugs, officers started making site visitors stops of automobiles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up packing containers full of cocaine, in keeping with a federal legal complaint filed in San Diego.

They raided the properties — finding no other medicine at the warehouse, but a tunnel opening carved into the cement ground, federal prosecutors mentioned.

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

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

The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s 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 associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.

Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific cartel. They claimed victory regardless of not figuring out how long it had been working.

“There is no such thing as a extra light at the finish of this narco-tunnel,” said Randy Grossman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. “We will take down every 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. facet of tunnels with concrete after they are discovered.

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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.