El Chapo’s ‘tunnel’

B’klyn jury told of US-Mex smuggle

Brooklyn jurors in the “El Chapo’’ trial got an inside look Wednesday at a tunnel used to smuggle “nearly pure’’ cocaine into the United States, as a former Sinaloa Cartel honcho methodically revealed how the enterprise operates.

Prosecutors first called Carlos Salazar, a US Customs special agent, to the stand to testify how he unearthed the underground passage linking a home in Agua Prieta, Mexico, to a building in Douglas, Ariz. — about “two blocks’’ from a Customs facility.

Inside the 40- to 50-foot tunnel, Salazar said, he and other agents discovered “about 1 ton of cocaine.”

The ex-agent said he was led to the tunnel in May 1990 thanks to an infor- mant whom he paid $500.

It was around 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 3 to 4 feet wide — more than enough space to accommodate accused Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo’’ Guzman, although the feds have yet to link it directly to him.

Guzman is accused of running the cartel and pumping tons of narcotics into the US during his decades-long reign over the world’s most prolific drug enterprise.

Jesus Zambada, a former Sinaloa Cartel member, testified about the group’s inner workings, explaining to jurors that he was an accountant and sub-leader from 1987 to 2008.

Zambada described how they used speedboats, oil tankers, Chevy Suburbans and even human chains to get their product into the US in the early to mid1990s.

“You wait until the fastboat has arrived on the Mexican coastline, and at that time period they would come 60 or 50 meters off of the beach,” Zambada testified. “When they arrive, a human chain would be formed to unload quicker the cocaine from the boat.”

On one occasion, Zambada recalled, cartel members “sank” 20 tons of cocaine off the coast of Mexico after getting spooked. He said it was later recovered with divers.

According to Zambada, the cartel’s biggest payoff came when any of its shipments reached the streets of New York, where it turned a profit of $35,000 per kilo compared to $13,000 per kilo in LA and $16,000 in Chicago. That was because the risk was so great, he said.

“The city of New York is the most difficult to sell it in because the police are very active,” Zambada said.