30 Tons and a Tunnel

[Rabbi Reefer]

Another funnel from Mexico to Sand Diego found

Another funnel from Mexico to Sand Diego found

Is Mexico filled with "Mole People"?
They are always tunneling!? WTF!?

[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif] SAN DIEGO (AP) - U.S. authorities on Thursday found a sophisticated tunnel used to smuggle drugs between Mexico and San Diego, the second such discovery in the region in less than a month.
The half-mile passage runs from a residence in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area, the San Diego Tunnel Task Force said in a statement.
Federal border patrol, drug enforcement, immigration, and customs enforcement agents in the task force arrested several suspects and seized an undetermined amount of marijuana in a tractor-trailer on U.S. soil, the statement said.
The statement said authorities believed more marijuana was being stored inside the tunnel. Agents were working with the Mexican military on the investigation.
Officials said they will release further details of the probe Friday afternoon.
Earlier this month, federal agents made one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States when they confiscated 20 tons of marijuana they said was smuggled into the country through another tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico. Mexican authorities seized more than four tons of pot from the warehouse south of the border.
The secret passageway ran the length of six football fields and had lighting, ventilation and a rail system to send loads of illegal drugs from Mexico into California.
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[vta]

SECOND MARIJUANA TUNNEL DISCOVERED

Two More Warehouses Found, 20 Tons of Pot Seized, Eight Arrested in San Diego, Tijuana.

Federal authorities have unearthed another cross-border tunnel in a San Diego warehouse district, the second major tunnel discovery and multi-ton seizure of marijuana believed to be from Mexico's most powerful drug cartel in a month.

The 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.

"This has a huge impact," Partridge said.

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 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 where a "For Rent" sign hung 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 traversed the entire 2,200-foot passage, which featured lighting and ventilation systems. They surfaced in the kitchen of the residence where a family lived. Authorities said six people were arrested in Mexico.

"They were very surprised," said Tim Durst, an assistant special agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement who heads the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force. The bust culminated an eight-month investigation, built largely on tips from informants.

Authorities seized four tons of marijuana in the Tijuana residence and another location in Mexico; three tons in the tunnel; and about 13 tons in the tractor trailer. Two men were arrested in California, including the driver of the tractor-trailer.

The tunnel was one of the longest ever discovered and had several unique features that highlighted traffickers' evolving approach to ferrying drugs under 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, roughly 10 by 20 feet, where smugglers off-loaded the marijuana bales from the cart before hoisting them to the surface.

The most unusual feature was the construction of two tunnel branches, which authorities speculate allowed smugglers alternate exit points in case of surveillance.