Mysterious tunnel found
Purpose of Toronto excavation baffles security agencies, experts
TORONTO — In the deep woods behind the tennis stadium they worked, tunneling day after day, inching forward through the crumbling earth. They dug by hand — using no machinery, just shovels and buckets to remove the soil. But the work they left behind seemed professional nonetheless, sophisticated even, if no less mysterious for that.
Toronto Police revealed more details Tuesday of the baffling tunnel discovered in the north end of the city.
The chamber, carved into the earth near York University, had the look of a professional work site. It was 10 metres long, almost two metres high and about 70 centimetres wide. But after weeks of study, investigators said they still have no idea who dug it, or why.
For now, there is no evidence of any crime related to the chamber, though police aren’t ruling anything out.
“Looking at it objectively, somebody has basically dug a tunnel; there’s no criminal offence for that,” said Deputy Police Chief Mark Saunders.
Whoever dug the tunnel, though, took elaborate steps to hide it. They built a separate, sound-proofed chamber about 10 metres from the first to house a generator. They ran extension cords beneath the earth between the two to power moisture-resistant lights and a sump-pump to drain water from the pit.
Inside the main chamber, the walls were supported like a dug-out basement, with thick wooden beams, plywood walls and ceiling. On a beam about halfway down, hanging from a nail, was an old rosary, with a crucifix on one end, and a plastic Remembrance Day poppy attached to the other.
One expert said it would have probably taken a team of two experienced miners working full time at least two weeks to complete the work. Yet the entire thing was done without attracting notice. This was despite being a baseball’s throw away from the bustling Rexall Centre, home to Canada’s national tennis program at York and where tennis events will take place during this sum- mer’s Pan Am Games.
Gary Benner, a professional engineer and the principal at Underground Consulting, said whoever dug the tunnel knew what they were doing. “This is not an amateur piece of work,” he said. “This is an experienced miner, at least one of them.”
Based on the photos released by police Tuesday, Benner said, the tunnel looked like a “cap and leg,” an old method of digging short tunnels by hand that was popular in Toronto about a generation ago. Based on that, he said he suspected the dig- ger was an older professional. “Only an experienced older guy would do this,” he said.
Police say the tunnel was discovered by chance when a parks worker stumbled across an unusual mound of dirt in the Black Creek Parkland behind the university on Jan. 14. Nearby, hidden beneath a layer of soil, the worker found the entrance to the tunnel, covered over with plywood.
Police investigators have since excavated and filled in the hole. Inside or nearby, they found work gloves, empty food and drink containers, and a pumping system to remove ground water.
They don’t know when the mystery diggers did their work. But they suspect it was probably in the summer or fall, when the bushy foliage would have hidden them from watching eyes at York or in the houses on the other side of the ravine. Saunders said investigators have contacted their counterparts in provincial, federal and international agencies, but for now the investigation remains a local one.