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San Diego drug tunnel had railcar, tons of pot Nov. 26, 2010 05:51 PM Associated Press SAN DIEGO - A sophisticated cross-border tunnel equipped with a rail system, ventilation and fluorescent lighting has been shut down by U.S. and Mexican officials - the second discovery of a major underground drug passage in San Diego this month, authorities said Friday. The tunnel found Thursday is 2,200 feet long - more than seven football fields - and runs from the kitchen of a home in Tijuana, Mexico, to two warehouses in San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial district, said Mike Unzueta, head of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. In Mexico, the tunnel's cinderblock-lined entry dropped 80 to 90 feet to a wood-lined floor, Unzueta said. From the U.S. side, there was a stairway leading to a room about 50 feet underground that was full of marijuana. "It's a lot like how the ancient Egyptians buried the kings and queens," Unzueta said. Authorities seized more than 20 tons of marijuana. Unzueta said the tunnel discovered Thursday and another found in early November are believed to be the work of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, headed by that country's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. "We think ultimately they are controlled by the same overall cartel but that the tunnels were being managed and run independently by different cells operating within the same organization," Unzueta said. The passage found Thursday is one of the most advanced to date, with an entry shaft in Mexico lined with cinderblocks and a rail system for drugs to be carried on a small cart, Unzueta said. Three men were arrested in the United States, and the Mexican military raided a ranch in Mexico and made five arrests in connection with the tunnel, authorities said. U.S. authorities have discovered more than 125 clandestine tunnels along the Mexican border since the early 1990s, though many were crude and incomplete. U.S. authorities do not know how long the latest tunnel was operating. Unzueta said investigators began to look into several warehouses in June on a tip that emerged from a large bust of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. U.S. authorities followed a trailer from one of the warehouses to a Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, where they seized 27,600 pounds of marijuana. The driver, whose name was not released, was arrested, along with two others who went to a residence in suburban El Cajon that had $13,500 cash inside. "That (trailer) was literally filled top to bottom, front to back," Unzueta said. "There wasn't any room for anything else in that tractor-trailer but air." Three tons of marijuana were found in a "subterranean room" and elsewhere in the tunnel on the U.S. side, authorities said. Mexican officials seized four tons of pot at a ranch in northern Mexico, bringing the total haul to more than 20 tons. The discovery of the cross-border tunnel earlier this month marked one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, with agents confiscating 20 tons of marijuana they said was smuggled through the underground passage. One of the warehouses involved in the tunnel discovered Thursday is only a half-block away. Several sophisticated tunnels have ended in San Diego warehouses. ICE began meeting with landowners last month to warn them about leasing space to tunnel builders. "These owners of warehouses, they need to know their customers, they need to know who's in there leasing these things," Unzueta said.
Cross-border pot smuggling tunnel has sophisticated features November 27, 2010 | 7:41 am The drug tunnel found this week on the U.S.-Mexico border has several sophisticated features, officials said. The tunnel, discovered in a San Diego warehouse district, was one of the longest ever discovered and had several unique features that highlighted traffickers' evolving approach to ferrying drugs across the border. The floor of the passageway was lined with tongue-and-groove wooden boards that served as a level surface for the cart-and-rail system. There was an underground room, about 10 feet by 20 feet, where smugglers offloaded the marijuana bales from the cart before hoisting them to the surface. And there were two tunnel branches, which authorities speculated allowed smugglers alternate exit points in case of surveillance. The cross-border tunnel, which started in a residence in Tijuana, stretched nearly half a mile and split into two passageways, with the branches emerging at separate warehouses nearly 800 feet apart. The tunnel was within a block of a subterranean passage found three weeks ago, where authorities seized more than 25 tons of marijuana, the second-largest marijuana seizure in U.S. history. With Thursday's haul of 20 more tons, authorities said they had dealt a significant double blow to Mexican organized-crime groups. The amount seized was the equivalent of about 17 million marijuana joints, said Ralph Partridge, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in San Diego. Authorities believe the drugs found in the tunnels this month belonged to separate cells of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which has long used northern Baja California as a staging ground for smuggling drugs into California. The discovery on Thursday morning came after U.S. agents stopped a tractor-trailer loaded with marijuana bales that had just left a warehouse on Marconi Drive. Inside the empty warehouse space, which had a "For Rent" sign out front, agents found an opening cut into the concrete floor. They traversed the tunnel to the second opening in a warehouse a few blocks away on Via de la Amistad. To find the opening on the Tijuana side, Mexican Army soldiers traveled the entire 2,200-foot passage, which featured lighting and ventilation systems. They surfaced in the kitchen of a residence where a family lived. Authorities said six people were arrested in Mexico. -- Richard Marosi in San Diego
Officials discover second San Diego drug tunnel by W. E. Messamore Sat, Nov 27th 2010 In San Diego, US and Mexican officials have discovered a sophisticated, cross-border tunnel which the drug cartel has been using to transport cannabis from Mexico over the US border into California. This is the second discovery of a cross-border "drug tunnel" in one month. On the Mexican side, the tunnel entrance is in the kitchen of a home in Tijuana. At nearly half a mile long, the tunnel terminates in a warehouse in an industrial district of San Diego. Investigators noted that the tunnel had a rail system, ventilation, and fluorescent lights. Officials on both sides of the border made eight arrests in connection with the discovery and seized over 27,000 pounds of cannabis. Earlier this month, California voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have legalized the cultivation, possession, and use of cannabis for recreational purposes. If the controversial ballot initiative had passed, it may have corrected the very economic incentives that drove Mexican drug lords to build these tunnels (among the 75 other less sophisticated cross-border tunnels that authorities have discovered over the last four years). So long as cannabis use remains illegal, the market for cannabis will be dominated by the violent drug cartel. As gun enthusiasts often say: "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns." Likewise, "If you outlaw the sale of cannabis, only outlaws will sell cannabis." But if Californians could legally grow cannabis in their gardens or purchase some from a law-abiding retailer which gets its supply from a peaceful, law-abiding California farmer, the violent Mexican drug cartel would stand to lose a lot of business. In addition to losing sales of cannabis, the drug cartel would lose profits from each sale. After legalization, the market would be flooded with marijuana and the risk of growing or selling it would diminish- steeply driving down the price of cannabis and destroying the artifically high profits that helped fund the creation of these sophisticated tunnels, as well as the high-powered weaponry that has resulted in thousands of deaths at the hands of Mexico's drug cartel in recent years. The law of supply and demand is simple, intuitive, and an uncontroversial axiom of economic inquiry. The more scarce a thing is, the more valuable it is, and the more suppliers can charge for it. By seizing 27,000 pounds of cannabis in their raid on this second San Diego drug tunnel, authorities have simply acted to drive up the price of any cannabis that remains in the market, and padded the bottom lines of whichever drug gang didn't sustain losses from this month's tunnel raids. California and the U.S. Federal government can continue pouring money into finding, raiding, and shutting down these tunnels, only to bolster the profits other gangs need to build more tunnels and buy more weapons. Or, instead of fighting the symptoms of the problem, authorities can fix the root of the problem itself, which are the perverse incentives and market distortions created by our policy of prohibition.
Border drug tunnels put warehouses under scrutiny Dec. 3, 2010 06:43 AM Associated Press SAN DIEGO - People come and go at odd hours. The walls vibrate from jackhammers. Tenants pay rent in cash. In San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area, these are signs that warehouses may be housing cross-border tunnels used to smuggle huge amounts of drugs from Tijuana, Mexico. After two major underground passages were discovered last month less than two blocks from one of nation's busiest border crossings for cargo, federal authorities are knocking on doors of warehouse owners and tenants to ask for help. They hope to learn more about the 12,000 businesses that occupy Otay Mesa's nondescript warehouses and low-slung office parks. The streets hum with cargo trucks by day and fall silent on nights and weekends. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who visited two offices Thursday peppered managers with questions before asking to look around: What line of work are you in? Who is your landlord? How many neighboring suites are leased? "We're trying to get as many eyes and ears in the community as we can," Jonathon White, the Drug Enforcement Administration's San Ysidro agent in charge, reassured one manager, a customs broker. The tunnels discovered last month ran about 2,000 feet and were equipped with rail car, lighting and ventilation systems. According to U.S. authorities, both were the work of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, headed by that country's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The discoveries produced some of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States. A passage discovered Nov. 2 that ran between warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego resulted in seizures of 30 tons on both sides of the border. A tunnel found on Thanksgiving Day resulted that ran from a Tijuana home to two San Diego warehouses produced seizures of than 20 tons on both sides of the border Outlets for the tunnel found last week were in bustling office parks, only 800 feet part. Looking back, neighbors said they missed clear warning signs. One next-door neighbor remembers hearing voices through the walls at night and rarely seeing anyone during the day. The front door was spray-painted to prevent anyone from looking inside. Mario Rodriguez, who worked next door to the tunnel's other outlet, said he never saw anyone come or go. "We don't realize until it's too late," said Rodriguez, 46. "Look over there, across the street. I have no idea what they do." |