US border police have found a sophisticated drug smugglers' tunnel the length of six football fields linking southern California with Mexico and arrested two people, authorities said yesterday.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency said the tunnel ran between warehouses in Otay Mesa, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. It measured 600 metres and was equipped with a rail system, lighting and ventilation.
Agents recovered more than 25 tonnes of marijuana in seizures related to the investigation in both California and Mexico and arrested a US citizen and his Mexican wife.
The couple were stopped at a border checkpoint in Southern California, driving a trailer loaded with 10 tonnes of marijuana. The truck had earlier left the warehouse, which agents had under surveillance.
"This wasn't a mom-and-pop operation, or in this case a husband and wife operation. This is clearly organised crime at work. This was the cartels," said John Morton, director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Investigators said the tunnel is about waist high and was fitted with rails and a pulley system that they suspect was used to ferry drugs under the border in a cart. It had been in operation for less than a month.
Mexico is in the grip of a drug war that has killed more than 30,000 people south of the border since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on powerful drug gangs.
Mexican cartels have bored scores of tunnels under the US-Mexico border in recent years to beat increased security at ports of entry and the rugged spaces in between. Nearly all of them linked cities on either side of Mexico's border with California and Arizona.
In early 2006, agents discovered a tunnel measuring 800m running under the same stretch of the border to Otay Mesa from Tijuana. It remains the longest such tunnel discovered to date.
Tijuana is the principal gateway for drugs entering California from Mexico. Last month, authorities there seized more than 100 tonnes of marijuana valued at more than $340 million in Mexico's biggest pot haul to date.
Reuters