Inside ‘sophisticated’ cross-border drug tunnel the length of six football fields after $25million narcotics bust
US authorities have found a cross-border drug smuggling tunnel decked with a rail system and electricity, in a $25million narcotics bust.
The “sophisticated” pathway is the length of six football fields and runs from Tijuana in Mexico to San Diego, California.
It runs one-third of a mile, four feet deep in diameter and about six stories deep.
Police say it was discovered on Friday near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border, an area where more than a dozen other sophisticated tunnels have been found.
They seized 1,762 pounds of cocaine, 165 pounds of meth and 3.5 pounds of heroin as part of the investigation.
Additionally, six California residents between the ages of 31 to 55 were charged in connection.
The tunnel exited the US in a nondescript warehouse named “Amistad Park.”
It’s not clear how long it had been operating or how many drugs got through it.
Police found it after staking out a home that was recently used to stash drugs, and making traffic stops of vehicles that had been there or at a warehouse near the border, turning up boxes full of cocaine.
They found no other drugs at the property, but located a tunnel opening carved into the cement floor, according to federal prosecutors.
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Authorities have found about 15 sophisticated tunnels on California’s border with Mexico since 2006, as reported by the Associated Press
The cross-border passages date back to the early 1990s and have been used primarily to smuggle multi-ton loads of marijuana.
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in 2020 that they are generally found in California and Arizona and associated with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
Authorities declined to link the latest tunnel to any specific cartel.
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