It is one of the longest smuggling tunnels ever uncovered. And it was built right under our noses.
U.S. authorities said Wednesday that they discovered a cross-border tunnel that ran a half-mile from a Tijuana house equipped with a large elevator to a lot in San Diego that was advertised as a wooden pallet business, resulting in seizures of more than a ton of cocaine and seven tons of marijuana.
It was the 13th sophisticated secret passage found along California’s border with Mexico since 2006, including three on the same short street in San Diego that runs parallel to a border fence with a densely populated residential area on the Mexican side. The unusually narrow tunnel was only about three feet wide, equipped with a rail system, lighting and ventilation.
The tunnel was unusual because it was used for cocaine, not just marijuana, said Laura Duffy, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California. Tunnels are often built for marijuana because its bulk and odor make it more difficult to escape border inspectors’ scrutiny than cocaine and other drugs.
The elevator, which was big enough for eight to 10 people, was located in the closet of a Tijuana house whose floors were strewn with mattresses, Duffy said. The tunnel zig-zagged for 874 yards to the fenced commercial lot in San Diego, where the exit was covered by a large trash bin.
Other tunnels that have ended in California were inside houses and warehouses.
“It’s a rabbit hole,” Duffy told reporters. “Just the whole way that it comes up and that it comes up out right into the open, it is a bit ingenious, I think, and it’s something completely different than what we’ve seen.”
Investigators didn’t know when the tunnel was completed. Margarita Ontiveros, who works at a law office next to the San Diego lot, said the tenants arrived about a year ago and often bought and sold wooden pallets.
“They loaded and unloaded a lot of pallets,” Ontiveros said. “They sold very cheap.”
Investigators began to monitor the lot daily last fall after Border Patrol agents assigned to the area saw heavy traffic and grew suspicious, said Duffy. The prosecutor said she was “fairly confident” that the first drug load was sent earlier this month but didn’t rule out the possibility that some got through undetected.
Six people were arrested in the San Diego area Friday on drug- and tunnel-related crimes, including one U.S. citizen, two Cubans who were granted asylum and three Mexicans who were legally entitled to be in the country, Duffy said.
Authorities saw a trash bin forklifted on to a truck at the San Diego lot on April 13 and followed it to a parking lot in San Diego, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations investigator said in a criminal complaint. Two days later, San Diego County sheriff’s deputies stopped a truck after it left the parking lot, seizing 2,240 pounds of cocaine and 11,030 pounds of marijuana.
Marijuana found in the tunnel and trash bin brought the total pot haul to more than seven tons, authorities said.
The discovery demonstrates the enduring appeal of tunnels to smugglers, despite the significant time and money required to build one. Dozens have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, mostly in California and Arizona. Many are found incomplete.
The San Diego-Tijuana region is popular because its clay-like soil is relatively easy to dig with shovels and pneumatic tools, and both sides of the border have warehouses that provide cover for trucks and heavy equipment.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Knowing and having a lot of LEGAL Mexicans, they have told me of how many from Mexico and further south pay a small fee to come over to US soil via many of these tunnels. Nothing new and surprised they were not found sooner!
Hillary says wall building is evil.
Thank God Trumps wall will put an end to these tunnels…….wait(?) huh!!!!
Knowing many Mexicans (legal) who have told me that many of these tunnels are not new and have been used for years after paying a small fee. I just wonder why they were not found and destroyed sooner.
In my opinion, where LOTS of money is involved corruption follows right along. I would bet our own government has known about it and MANY others for years! There must be a big $$$ incentive to be quiet or possible threats to be implemented by the Drug Lords!
You could be right. It makes sense that a border control agent (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations investigator, according to the article) would be mad enough to bite the governmental hand that feeds him after all the hypocrisy he’s been forced to endure, i.e. being ordered to let the illegals he catches go.
Right Minerva! I was fired from U.S. Immigration for refusing to let ILLEGAL ALIENS enter the United States! I had 18 years and since I believed I had taken the oath to defend and protect, and was assigned on the southern border(Texas, Arizona & Calif.), I didn’t think this useless PreZident would ever write such an Executive Order to allow these leech bastard ILLEGAL ALIEN DRUG CARTEL sonofabitches to enter the United States, as if they were just walking around the corner without even being stopped by Border Patrol. AND, ANY Border Patrol Agent that did not follow his Executive Order should be terminated immediately, without notice. My Border Patrol colleague showed me after I was gone for about 4 months, the order stated, wherever or whenever possible, terminate said agent in Arizona(because it is a right to work state and Arizona can terminate you for any reason without repercussions). Ovomit is a worthless, lieing PreZident and should be impeached for treason against the United States.
I’ll tell you…when I was with CBP, we KNEW and still know today of 11 like tunnels coming into the United States. Why Ovomit won’t let the CBP or ICE or some law enforcement agency simpy destroy them is beyond me. We have camera’s set up on our side, CBP watches and monitors these CCTV 24/7 and sees’ these ILLEGALS entering, some of them even wearing the Muslim ‘garbs’ and rags on their heads. I had suggested many times, and even to my Senators, that the way to stop the massive ILLEGAL ALIEN influx is to let CBP or our military bobby trap the tunnels on OUR side and have the camera’s rolling. The first set of ILLEGAL mf’er’s that do try and do drug or people trafficking, KABOOM, they are dust! Think that might stop the Mexicans or human traffickers from bribes from the cartels?? I think so! But no, Ovomit has strict orders to let them cross unimpeded and let them be. Sure is a sorry-assed case for Democrat votes, eh?
One more reason to support legalization/decriminalization of most recreational drugs. Take the business away from the street criminals and let the giant drug companies run wild-and tax the hell out of it. This wouldn’t be perfect but better than what is happening now.
Arthur-
i agree; iirc, Holland uses tax money from drug sales to educate their students about the dangers of drug abuse, and drug abuse there is minimal – it comes mostly from foreign addicts who visit there to get and stay high.
Unfortunately, the PtB seem to like it this way; first, they get to create a WHOLE lot of drains on societal programs, which keeps Americans in debt(and debtors are slaves); second, their profits from incarcerating drug abusers stay high, and third, their profits from using USG agents to smuggle drugs also remain high.
You’re aware, i presume, that under the Taliban, opium production had been driven to the lowest levels EVER in Afghanistan; however, under the US occupation/war, they’re now the HIGHEST on record. This criminal state of affairs did NOT happen by accident, but by DESIGN.
So to make a long story short, until Americans can figure out how to throw off the debt-shackles of the Shadow government, the status quo will remain.
For the past few months the country has been fundamentaly changing, reality is begining to rear its ugly head..The traditional
assumptions e.g. capitalism is the greatest institution in the world, socialism is the greatest evil, our “war-on-drugs” is the
most virtuous crusade we’ve ever undertaken have been turned on their heads
If this country is to continue in a recognizable state the reforms proposed by Donald Trump, will have to become a reality.
Much less intrusiveness by the Federal Government, a fairer distribution of income and a halt to illegal immigration will become realities. The alternative is grim indeed.
Fair distribution of income is the largest pie in the sky idea of all time. Sounds good on paper, but since not all people have the same inclination to work income from those willing to work will be confiscated to give to those unwilling to work, All in the name of helping the poor. Only the willing.unwilling. Not the unable which is another problem because who decides whom is unable to work. Besides the govt is not a charitable operation since only the hair dresser knows when the charity ends and the vote buying begins and she is not talking..
Love this comment.
You’re right, who’s to say who’s “unable”. The pencil pusher does not know the individual. It’s just paperwork and red tape. Get welfare out of the Federal branch. Protect the border, etc like the founding fathers intended, that’s Federal business.
Let charity begin and stay local (community and on up to state level) the way it happens naturally. The neighbors know who need help.
All need to Watch the Movie Logan’s Run. If drugs are legalized it will be a sad day! Check out Denver, CO.
Better to have a government that really wants to stop the drugs coming into the US. Not sure that will happen!
Make drugs legal & TAX them… Same as Alcohol…
take all the drugs you want but once it costs taxpayers money or I have to step over you ,one chance to repent then execution . That is an incentive plan.
If the tunnels are true then the legals that are here are making money off the illegals that are letting drugs come into our country isn’t it funny how people turn a blind eye when they can make money off the Mexicans there own people.
“…despite the significant time and money required to build one [tunnel].” The money is completely INSIGNIFICANT when you compare it to the obscene profit they’re making. There’s no business model anything like it anywhere else in the world.
I believe this is true but it makes me feel hELPLESS! What can we do?
Juanita-
What can we do?
If you’re referring to groups of citizens, not much; if you’re referring to border control agents, they can be given access to satellite telemetry, for example, looking specifically for wheelbarrows full of dirt being trundled out of houses (or warehouses or businesses, etc.) on the Mexican side of the border.
In addition, many Vietnam vets have LOTS of experience in finding tunnels, especially the tunnels of sappers: hire them, and give them GPR(ground-penetrating radar) to detect these tunnels.
If i’m not mistaken, there are forms of electronic surveillance that can detect the minute earth-changes that result from tunneling beneath the earth’s surface, too, even from satellites – use that, as well.
In re: the Gore Vidal citation, he’s right – and the CIA has been engaged in smuggling drugs for decades, now, albeit usually by proxy, so they can have “plausible deniability” should any be caught at it. Then don’t NEED tunnels; they just fly it into military bases under “national security” cloaks, like they’ve been doing since long before Mina, Arkansas during the Klinton Krime Klown Kabal reign. My guess is that the spooks have been part of the “open borders” D’OweBama policies so that they can keep up the illusion that some one OTHER THAN THEMSELVES are responsible for the influx of drugs. After all, when the borders are closed and enforced yet the “drug problem” doesn’t diminish a freckle, investigators will look elsewhere to determine the real source…right?
The late writer Gore Vidal said the drug traffic will never be halted by the U.S because there
is too much money in it.
Not to worry…..Trumps Wall will stop all tunnel building and end the Drug War we’ve wasted $8 TRILLION on over the last FORTY-PLUS YEARS!!!
Then everybody will have 2 Unicorns in every garage, all Jews and Muslims will convert to Christianity and all violent criminals will turn in their illegal wapons, change their ways and start farting rainbows!!!!
It’ll be a YUUUGGE Paradise!!!!
Wehms-
Then everybody will have 2 Unicorns in every garage, all Jews and Muslims will convert to Christianity and all violent criminals will turn in their illegal weapons, change their ways and start farting rainbows!!!!
ROFL! Ok, no matter how you feel about the subject, THAT’s FUNNY!
That said, i completely agree that the “war on drugs” has been an ABYSMAL failure – well, unless the REAL intent was to criminalize and imprison millions for non-violent crimes, that is, and trample on our Right to do whatever we wish to or for our own bodies (as long as we harm no one else in the process), thus tightening the “slavery net” around every American…if THAT was the plan, it’s working quite well, what with the “guilty until proven innocent” seizure laws being enforced all over the country(not to me mention domestic violence accusations, child molestation accusations, ad nauseum).
After all, that principle – “Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” – was BEDROCK, axiomatic law for most of this nation’s history because it’s DAMN-NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to prove to gov’t agents that you DIDN’T do something. This puts the burden on CITIZENS, when it has previously ONLY been on gov’t agents to prove GUILT…and “beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty,” too!
“Massive drug tunnel discovered under California”
… flippin shocked! (… sarcasm greatly intended!)