Daily Star

BREAKING BAD DRUG TUNNEL...UNDER KFC

Gang path from USA to Mexico

- By JAMES CAVEN james.caven@dailystar.co.uk

A SECRET Breaking Bad-style drug tunnel has been found stretching from an old KFC in the US to Mexico.

The passage is believed to have been used by gangsters to ferry millions of pounds worth of drugs across the border.

Authoritie­s reckon they were smuggled across and pulled up using a rope, then loaded into boxes from the fast food shop.

The 22ft-deep route runs from San Luis, Arizona, into a house in, Sonora, Mexico, less than a mile away.

It drew comparison­s to hit TV show Breaking Bad, where chicken restaurant Los Pollos Hermanos is used as a front by drug dealer Gus Fring.

In the series, lead characters Walter White and Jesse Pinkman worked for Fring, producing crystal meth in an undergroun­d laboratory. The Arizona tunnel was discovered after police pulled over Ivan Lopez during a traffic stop.

Sniffer dogs alerted the officers and they allegedly found more than £900,000 of drugs in the back of the truck.

The haul reportedly consisted of 118kg of crystal meth, 6g of cocaine, 19kg of heroin and 3kg fentanyl.

Lopez, who bought the former restaurant for more than £300,000 in April, was seen removing boxes from the building. Officers searched his home and the old restaurant, where they discovered the tunnel. It turned out to be large enough for people to walk through.

On the Mexican side, a trap door was found hidden under a bed.

Officials said the passage was extremely well built and would have taken “a long time to dig”.

Special agent Scott Brown said: “As a nation in the midst of an opioid crisis, this is obviously a significan­t seizure.”

Lopez remains in custody.

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 ??  ?? ®ÊSECRET ROUTE: Entrance to the tunnel, left, and the old KFC restaurant in Arizona
®ÊSECRET ROUTE: Entrance to the tunnel, left, and the old KFC restaurant in Arizona

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