Federal officials have closed cartel tunnels connecting Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to El Paso. On February 8, ICE officials announced the tunnels’ burial and released photos of the structure, which was built by the international drug cartel La Nueva Empresa.
CARTEL-BUILT TUNNELS BURIED
Oscar Ivan Carillo of Texas was sentenced for aiding narco-terrorist cartels in conducting smuggling operations through man-made tunnels.
A powered and ventilated tunnel constructed by the international drug cartel La Nueva Empresa ran beneath the… pic.twitter.com/1JZXDGyWdO
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) February 8, 2026
The tunnel ran under the Rio Grande River and featured power and ventilation. Illegal aliens were guided through the tunnel into El Paso, where they emerged from a manhole cover and into a box truck through a trap door.
ICE-El Paso, partnering with the Border Patrol, arrested “key members” of the cartel and seized tunnel-building materials.
El Paso resident Oscar Ivan Carrillo, age 20, was sentenced to 2.75 years in federal prison on January 28 for smuggling illegal aliens through the tunnel, according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security.
Carillo was indicted on April 2, 2025, and arrested in June. He pleaded guilty on November 4. He and other suspects reportedly used hand tools to connect storm drains to the tunnel, and used it to guide illegal aliens into America.
“Criminals continue to innovate and exploit our border for profit, putting lives at risk and undermining our nation’s security,” said ICE-HSI El Paso Acting Special Agent in Charge Taekuk Cho in the release. “We are committed to identifying, investigating and dismantling these dangerous smuggling networks.”
The Cartel
La Nueva Empresa is a relatively new cartel based in Juarez, formed in 2018 by members of La Linea crime group and the once-rival drug gangs Aztecas and Mexicles, according to The El Paso Times.
Mexican police arrested the cartel’s founder, Luis “El Tio” Mendez, in May 2020. He was the final fugitive in the 2010 murders of four Americans – including an unborn child – tied to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez.
Officials blamed La Nueva Empresa for rising gang violence in Juarez in 2021, according to Border Report.
In 2024, federal officials busted one of the cartel’s stash houses in Sunland Park, New Mexico – just across the state border from El Paso, according to WDKY. During the raid, they found 22 illegal aliens.
In January, state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller backed President Donald Trump’s call for military strikes on cartels –calling them “savage terrorists profiting from addiction, agony, and anarchy,” as The Dallas Express reported. In November 2025, state Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham ordered officials to search for cartel tunnels in high-risk areas on the border.
