US authorities have discovered a large drug smuggling tunnel 6 football fields long, stretching from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area of California in the United States of America.
And the US authorities said that the secret passage from the Mexican city of Tijuana to San Diego in the US resembles a railway with reinforced walls and ventilation and electricity systems, according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”.
Homeland Security agents added that a tunnel 1,744 feet long, 61 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter was found near the Ote Mesa border crossing in San Diego, noting that more than a dozen other complex tunnels have been found in the same area in the past two decades.
US authorities said they did not know how long the tunnel had been in operation or how many drugs had gone undetected, noting that they seized 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of methamphetamine and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). kg) of heroin.
U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said: “The man bought a house that was recently used to hide drugs as officials began stopping cars that were there or in a warehouse near the border and importing crates full of cocaine, according to a federal criminal lawsuit filed. in San Diego. They then tracked down two suspects who left the house in a car and headed to the warehouse.”
Grossman added: “When inspecting the warehouse, agents discovered a difficult exit point from the border tunnel dug into the concrete floor, and we suspect that the defendants drove to the garage and loaded and unloaded cardboard boxes filled with drugs to increase the movement and distribution of drugs in the United States.”
US authorities have charged six people aged 31 to 55 with “conspiracy to distribute cocaine” in Southern California.
It is worth noting that hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl are commonly smuggled through official border crossings from Mexico because their small size and lack of odor make them difficult to detect, but the tunnels give smugglers the advantage of being able to transport huge downloads at lightning speed. Authorities have discovered about 15 complex tunnels along the California-Mexico border since 2006, the largest of which was the massive 4,309-foot tunnel in Tijuana that was discovered by federal agents in January 2020. 1990s and were used mainly for the smuggling of multi-ton marijuana. Under federal law, US authorities must fill the US side of the tunnels with concrete after they are discovered.
