July 21, 2005

By Carleen Johnson


Authorities release more information on the bizarre case; three arrests have been made.


SEATTLE - Border and DEA agents, watched construction of an underground tunnel for months, before making arrests yesterday.

The smuggling tunnel ran from an abandoned greenhouse on the Canadian side, to an abandoned house near Lynden in northern Washington State.

Border Patrol spokesman Joe Guliano tells KOMO News the tunnel could be used for drugs or worse!

"For any other purpose the owner of the tunnel would care to make it available for," Guliano says.

Officials had been watching the construction for eight months. Why let them finish it?

"When you have something on this scale that requires that type of funding to accomplish you have to wonder who's behind the thing," he says. "To fill the thing with cement when it's half done doesn't answer those questions."

The tunnel is about 150 yards long, four feet wide and four feet tall with concrete reinforcement throughout.

This is believed to be the first such tunnel ever found in this part of the country.

Three arrests have been made. Specifics of the case were to be revealed later today.