California’s cocaine tunnel
Exposed, 1,700ft pipeline below Mexico border to get cartel’s wares into US
‘Carry huge loads at lightning speed’
A HUGE drugs tunnel with a lift shaft, ventilation units and railway has been found stretching from a Mexican warehouse into California.
Measuring 1,700ft and extending around 60ft below ground, it was used by gangs to smuggle vast quantities of drugs into the United States.
From the entrance in the Mexican city of Tijuana it runs under the border before surfacing in a warehouse near the Otay Mesa checkpoint in San Diego. It is the 15th such tunnel to be found since 2006.
Officials said they did not know how long it had been operating or how many tons of drugs had passed through it. But they seized 799kg of cocaine, 75kg of methamphetamine and 1.6kg of heroin in connection with their investigation that came to a conclusion last Friday.
Six people, who are aged from 31 to 55 and based in southern California, were charged with conspiring to distribute illicit drugs.
The 4ft wide tunnel runs under one of the most fortified stretches of the border – illustrating the limitations of the walls touted by Donald Trump.
Heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl are typically smuggled through official border crossings because their small size and lack of odour make them difficult to detect.
But tunnels give smugglers an advantage of being able to carry huge loads at lightning speed.
The latest tunnel surfaced in the US in a nondescript warehouse named Amistad Park on a busy street.
Drugs enforcement agents who staked out the property stopped vehicles around the site and discovered boxes full of cocaine.
They found no illicit substances inside the warehouse, only a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor.
Many of the uncovered tunnels are in the Otay Mesa industrial area, where clay-like soil is conducive to digging and warehouses provide cover The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s and the US Drug Enforcement Adminis tration said in 2020 that they were often associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
However officials declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific gang And they claimed to
have scored a major victory despite not knowing how long it had been operating. ‘There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel,’ declared Randy Grossman, US attorney for the Southern District of California.
‘We will take down every subterranean smuggling route we find to keep illicit drugs from reaching our streets and destroying our families and communities.’