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 News from Around the Americas | December 2007 
Tunnel Set to be Plugged by Week's End
 Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | View of the tunnel under the U.S. Mexico border which starts in Tecate and runs into southern California December 4, 2007. Gunmen killed the police chief of Tecate, a Mexican city bordering California, on Tuesday by shooting him some 50 times in an apparent revenge attack after police found the drug-smuggling tunnel under the border on Monday. (Reuters/Jorge Duenes) |
A cross-border drug-smuggling tunnel discovered Monday near the Tecate border crossing is scheduled to be plugged by the end of this week.
“They're moving very fast to get it closed up,” said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. The entire tunnel eventually will be filled.
No arrests had been made by yesterday evening, but U.S. and Mexican authorities were cooperating in the investigation, Mack said. It was unclear how long the tunnel had been in operation.
The tunnel measures 1,300 feet, with about 1,000 feet in the United States and 300 feet in Mexico, Mack said. It runs 20 to 40 feet beneath the surface and is 5 to 6 feet high and 3 to 4 feet wide. Mexican officials initially had reported that the tunnel was much longer.
Investigators with the interagency Tunnel Task Force have determined that the tunnel had no ventilation, but had been equipped with electricity and pumps.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent on routine patrol with his dog discovered the tunnel early Monday while checking inside a trailer-size shipping container on a private lot. They found nearly 14,000 pounds of marijuana inside.
That night, Mexican authorities found the tunnel's southern end in an office building near the border.
Authorities in Mexico yesterday continued their investigation into a possible link between the tunnel's discovery and the shooting death of the second in command at the Tecate Police Department, José Juan Soriano Pérez.
U.S. authorities are asking anyone with information about the tunnel to call (877) 988-6635.
Sandra Dibble: sandra.dibble(at)uniontrib.com |
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