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U.S.-Mexico Drug Smuggling Tunnel Found

U.S.-Mexico Drug Smuggling Tunnel Found
The inside of a cross border tunnel between Mexico's Tijuana into the San Diego area. | Image by Associated Press

A sophisticated underground tunnel running between the United States and Mexico was discovered last Friday, May 13, during a federal raid in California.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department, Homeland Security, and the U.S. Border Patrol executed a search warrant on a warehouse in the Otay Mesa community of San Diego County, located right on the border with Mexico.

Federal agents tracked suspected drug traffickers to the warehouse and observed them loading and unloading boxes containing what the agents believed to be illegal drugs.

Law enforcement intercepted the suspected traffickers on the road and reportedly discovered they had large quantities of illegal drugs in their possession.

Federal agents and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department subsequently raided the warehouse and discovered a sophisticated underground tunnel.

The “fully operational” cross-border tunnel ran from the warehouse to Tijuana. It likely served as a transit point for the shipment of illegal drugs from Mexico to the United States.

On Monday, May 16, U.S. authorities announced the discovery. They described the tunnel as one-third of a mile long, roughly the length of six football fields, 4 feet in diameter, 61 feet below ground, and fully equipped with ventilation, electric light, reinforced walls, and even a rail track.

While authorities consider this tunnel sophisticated, it is only one of many found in the area in the last 20 years, 15 since 2006.

Looking more broadly at southern California, U.S. authorities have found 90 secret passages and tunnels between the United States and Mexico since 1993.

According to the Guardian, “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 provide cover.”

U.S. authorities could not say with certainty how long the tunnel had been there or how long it had been operating.

The raid ultimately led to the arrest of six people, aged 31 to 55, all residents of southern California. Federal prosecutors charged them with three counts of conspiracy to distribute drugs.

Drugs seized due to the operation totaled 1,762 pounds of cocaine, 3.5 pounds of heroin, and 165 pounds of methamphetamine.

Per federal law, the tunnel on the U.S. side will be filled with concrete.

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