SAN DIEGO (AP) – 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. 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.
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