U.S. seizures $30M in illegal drugs from border tunnel near San Diego

Federal agents seized $29.6 million worth of illegal drugs from a tunnel used by smugglers to enter San Diego from Mexico, a cross-border passageway so sophisticated that it had ventilation, lighting and an underground rail system, authorities said Tuesday.

The tunnel’s entrance was not far from a newly constructed border wall that President Donald Trump visited in September in the Otay Mesa section of San Diego.

The stockpile of drugs included 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 86 pounds of methamphetamine, 17 pounds of heroin, 3,000 pounds of marijuana and more than 2 pounds of fentanyl, the San Diego Tunnel Task Force said.

The task force is made up of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Border Patrol, which said the 2,000-foot-long tunnel was discovered March 19.

“These tunnels show the determination of drug trafficking organizations to subvert our border controls and smuggle deadly drugs into our community,” John W. Callery, a DEA special agent in charge, said in a statement Tuesday.

There were no arrests in the seizure, which authorities said was part of a developing investigation. They said the seizure was one of the largest hauls of illegal drugs found in a single tunnel in recent memory.

The discovery came a little over two months after a 4,309-foot-long tunnel was found in the same area, one that federal agents said was the longest tunnel ever found along the southwestern border of the United States.

“Cross-border tunnels represent one of the most significant threats to our national security,” Aaron M. Heitke, a chief Border Patrol agent, said in a statement Tuesday. “Criminal organizations can use these tunnels to introduce anything they want into the U.S. This is especially concerning during a global pandemic.”

Authorities said that the average depth of the tunnel, which connected warehouses in Otay Mesa and Tijuana, Mexico, was 31 feet. Federal agents said the 3-foot-wide tunnel had existed for several months and was discovered after the task force had learned of a narcotic smuggling operation by a transnational criminal organization. They did not name the organization.

“If cartels keep spending millions of dollars building tunnels, we will keep finding and filling them,” Robert S. Brewer Jr., U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said in a statement.