Feds: ‘Longest ever’ drug-smuggling tunnel discovered

Hidden 70 feet beneath a small industrial building in Tijuana lies a long and sophisticated passageway — complete with a railway, plumbing and a ventilation system. It stretches more than three-quarters of a mile, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Mexican narcotics traffickers used the tunnel to smuggle drugs across the border into an industrial area in San Diego.

CBP officials announced discovery of the passageway Wednesday, calling it the “longest ever” such tunnel found at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I am thrilled that this high level narco-tunnel has been discovered and will be rendered unusable for cross-border smuggling,” Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said in a statement.

The CBP’s Tunnel Task Force initially discovered the passageway in Tijuana, just west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, in late August; U.S. officials alerted Mexican authorities, who allowed them to enter the tunnel from Mexico and map its route from the southern side, Theron Francisco, a spokesman with the San Diego Sector of CBP, told the Washington Post.

The mapping process typically takes months. The U.S. exit point was eventually identified in an industrial area in San Diego, and it has been blocked off from the inside by sandbags. The tunnel also had an unfinished dead-end offshoot stretching more than 3,500 feet past the border.

At a total of 4,309 feet in length, the tunnel is 1½ times longer than the previous record-holder identified by CBP officials: a tunnel discovered in San Diego in 2014 that stretched 2,966 feet.

Measuring 5½ feet tall and about 2 feet wide, the Tijuanato-San Diego tunnel is roomier than most — and better equipped, said Francisco, the CBP spokesman.

“When we classify the tunnels as a sophisticated tunnel, they usually have electricity, a rail system, ventilation. This one had a pretty sophisticated plumbing system for the groundwater runoff,” Francisco said. “When you go 70 feet below and 4,000 feet long, that’s pretty sophisticated.”