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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Abigail O'Leary

Inside Mexican cartel’s 'narco' drug tunnel that ran nearly half a MILE under US border

A drugs tunnel running for the a third of a mile under the U.S.-Mexico border was has been discovered by anti-narcotics agents.

The so-called 'narco tunnel' is believed to have been used by smugglers' transporting drugs across the border from the Mexican city of Tijuana to a warehouse 300 feet from the border in San Diego, California.

Astonishingly, the hidden tunnel was equipped with a rail track, electricity and ventilation system, the US Department of Justice said.

Authorities arrested six people for their alleged involvement in the drug-running scheme.

They are accused of conspiring to distribute cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, among other crimes.

The hidden tunnel was equipped with a rail track, electricity and ventilation system, the U.S. Department of Justice said (US HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Inside of the cross-border tunnel between Mexico's Tijuana and the San Diego area (US HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

"There is no more light at the end of this narco-tunnel," said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman in the statement.

The tunnel, estimated to be more than 1,750 feet (530 m) long, was also fitted out with reinforced walls.

The attorney general's office for the Mexican state of Baja California, where Tijuana is located, told Reuters U.S. authorities had notified them of the discovery Sunday, two days after it was found.

Members of the Attorney General's Office collect information outside a house where a drug trafficking tunnel was discovered (REUTERS)
Railroad tracks in a tunnel between Tijuana, Mexico, and Otay Mesa, San Diego, California (Homeland Security Investigations)

Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, led for years by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is responsible for many of these tunnels, found in warehouses, homes and businesses, Mexican authorities said.

Since 1993, close to 100 tunnels have been found in the same area, most recently in March 2020, U.S. prosecutors said.

The tunnel was one of the largest located in the region, the Baja California attorney general's office said Mexico's federal prosecutor's office was not respond to requests for comment.

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