Three sophisticated drug tunnels equipped with lighting and ventilation —including one with a railcar system — have been discovered along theU.S.-Mexico border in less than a week, the latest signs that cartels arebuilding passages to escape heightened detection above ground.
Two of the tunnels were incomplete, including one that the Mexican army foundin a Tijuana warehouse Thursday with more than 40 tons of marijuana at theentry. The passage extended nearly 400 yards, including more than 100 yardsinto the United States.
Soldiers found the Tijuana warehouse with four moving trucks full of marijuana,a trailer full of dirt, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, drills and other excavationequipment. The tunnel was equipped with a railcar system.
The Mexican army said three people were detained.
It was the second, major incomplete tunnel discovered in the San Diego-Tijuanaarea in two days and the fourth along the U.S.-Mexico border since Saturday,when a completed passage was found in a vacant strip mall storefront in thesouthwestern Arizona city of San Luis.
An incomplete tunnel along Arizona's border with Mexico was found Friday duringan inspection of a drainage system on the Mexican side of Nogales in earlystages of construction, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcementspokeswoman Amber Cargile. No arrests have been made in the investigation ofthe crude passage.
The 240-yard tunnel in San Luis, Ariz., showed a level of sophistication nottypically associated with other crude smuggling passageways that tie into stormdrains in the state.
"When you see what is there and the way they designed it, it wasn'tsomething that your average miner could put together," said DouglasColeman, special agent in charge of the Phoenix division of the DrugEnforcement Administration. "You would need someone with some engineeringexpertise to put something together like this."
As Thursday's massive pot seizure in Tijuana demonstrated, tunnels have becomean increasingly common way to smuggle enormous loads of heroin, marijuana andother drugs into the country. More than 70 passages have been found on theborder since October 2008, surpassing the number of discoveries in the previoussix years.
More than 150 secret tunnels have been found along the border since 1990, thevast majority of them incomplete, according to U.S. Immigration and CustomsEnforcement. Raids last November on two tunnels linking San Diego and Tijuananetted a combined 52 tons of marijuana on both sides of the border.
The first Arizona tunnel was discovered after state police pulled over a manwho had 39 pounds of methamphetamine in his vehicle and mentioned the stripmall.
The tunnel was found beneath a water tank in a storage room and stretchedacross the border to an ice-plant business in the Mexican city of San Luis RioColorado. It was reinforced with four-by-six beams and lined with plywood.
Investigators believe the tunnel wasn't in operation for long because there waslittle wear on its floor, and 55-gallon drums containing extracted dirt hadn'tbeen removed from the property.
Coleman said investigators can't yet say for sure if the tunnel, estimated tocost $1.5 million to build, was operated by the powerful Sinaloa cartel. Still,authorities suspect cartel involvement because the group from Sinaloa controlssmuggling routes into Arizona.
"Another cartel wasn't going to roll into that area and put down that kindof money in Sinaloa territory," Coleman said. "Nobody is going toconstruct this tunnel without significant cartel leadership knowing what'sgoing on."
On Wednesday, the Mexican army found an incomplete tunnel in Tijuana estimatedto be more than 150 yards long, beginning inside a building that advertised asa recycling plant. .
The Mexican army said two tractor-trailers were found inside the building,along with shovels, drills, pickaxes, buckets and other excavation tools. Thewalls were lined with dirt and wide enough for one person to get throughcomfortably.
U.S. authorities were investigating the tunnel discovered Wednesday for threemonths, said ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack.
It takes six months to a year to build a tunnel, authorities say. Workers useshovels and pickaxes to slowly dig through the soil, sleeping in buildingswhere the tunnels begin until the job is done. Sometimes they use pneumatictools.
The tunnels are concentrated along the border in California and Arizona. SanDiego is popular because its clay-like soil is easy to dig. In Nogales,smugglers tap into vast underground drainage canals.
San Diego's Otay Mesa area has the added draw that there are plenty ofnondescript warehouses on both sides of the border to conceal trucks gettingloaded with drugs. Its streets hum with semitrailers by day and fall silent onnights and weekends.