Tunnel Vision

By Full Measure Staff Sunday, April 3rd 2016

VIDEO: http://fullmeasure.news/news/immigration/tunnel-vision

April 03, 2016 — On Full Measure's recent trip to the southern border, we saw how easily drug smugglers climb over, cut through, or simply find spots where there is no border fence at all. But you might be surprised to know how extensively Mexico's smugglers use another tactic to move people and drugs into the U.S.: underground tunnels.

Nicknamed the "James Bond Tunnel", the first known drug tunnel was unearthed in the U.S. back in 1990. Federal agents who found it said it was like something out of a Bond movie.

At 270 feet long, it was dug near the official border crossing in the town of Douglas, Arizona, as part of a drug trafficking network run by Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman.

In just seven months, federal officials say Guzman used the five foot tall underground passageway to help smuggle 60-thousand pounds of cocaine into the U.S.

On the Mexican side, there was a hidden switch inside a smuggler's luxury home used to lift a pool table and concrete slab to open the passageway.

Border Patrol Agent Sergio Martinez: The first tunnel was discovered in 1990 in Douglas, Arizona and since then, they have encountered 183 tunnels within the Tucson sector and the southern border. And most recently in Nogales, Arizona, they have actually created a team. It's called the Nogales Tunnel Team, where their daily duties are to go find tunnels.

Border Patrol agents use remote controlled robots to investigate the tunnels.

The majority of tunnels, at least 100, have turned up in the town of Nogales, Arizona, some just steps from the border crossing teeming with federal agents.

A tunnel in the border town of Naco, Arizona, is one of the longest, at more than 900 feet and one of the most recent discoveries. It was found just a few hundred yards from the Mexican border, inside what looks like a shed next to a house.

Martinez: So apparently they were coming in through the shed, parking, opening the door, loading up the vehicle, and then pulling the stuff out of the tunnel.
Sharyl: And tell us how it was discovered.

Martinez: It was discovered by human intelligence. They pulled a vehicle over, and the guy had over 4,000 pounds of contraband in his vehicle and ended up giving some information up, and they came to the house with a warrant and arrested there all the individuals in the house. So they had a lift gate. They were bringing the narcotraffics and all the stuff they had, all the narcotics. They were bringing it above. They had a lift since they were so heavy. They were just bringing it up, straight up.

Sharyl: How long was an operation like this going on for them to be able to dig the tunnel and move the drugs?

Martinez: That is unknown, but we believe they probably had it for quite a while. It's a very sophisticated tunnel. With those poles under, there were lights. They were using oxygen to go across the border.
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels says the illegal enterprise operated for months in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Sheriff Mark Dannels: They had a guard that watched it on this side who was armed when they took him down. But it's a VIP tunnel. It's very sophisticated down there.
Sharyl: What do you mean 'VIP tunnel'?

Dannels: Very important tunnel. The normal person coming across the border to find that better way of life wasn't coming through here. This was your high-quality drugs coming through here: heroin, methamphetamine. And you hate to think, but I think there's a rally touch to it, whoever could pay a fee and possibly terrorists coming through here, which scares the heck out of me and should scare everybody when it comes to this tunnel. The opening of this tunnel was only controlled on the Mexico side. The U.S. folks guarding the tunnel on this side had no control of opening or closing it.

Sharyl: You mean it was mechanically shut, sealed and opened?
Dannels: Yep.

Sharyl: But from Mexico?

Dannels: Correct. The effort and the work and the expense to build a tunnel of this magnitude shows you how desperate they are to get their product through.

Sharyl: So they're literally digging under where Border Patrol and you guys may be walking above ground everyday?

Dannels: You know, what's disappointing is, we promote community policing, both the Border Patrol and us when it comes to getting in our communities, working, gathering that intel, but nobody reported this.

Martinez: We have trained agents and we have become more able to discover and use technology to find them. It has decreased the use of them. So we have found three in the last year, and seven and six and five in the years previous to that. So we're getting better at it.

Last year, El Chapo Guzman, the father of all drug tunnels, escaped from a maximum security Mexican prison through, what else, but an elaborate tunnel almost a mile long. Prison surveillance video shows him making a quick exit.

The tunnel was complete with lights, ventilation and a motorcycle on rails that was likely used to carry out dirt.

Guzman was recaptured in January. U.S. officials have noted a similarity between the tunnel Guzman used to escape and that very first one discovered in Douglas, Arizona, back in 1990. They may want to check the floor of his prison cell daily.