U.S. authorities find exit to lengthy cross-border tunnel

Associated Press
Jan. 26, 2006 07:10 AM


SAN DIEGO - Authorities located the U.S. exit to a "massive" cross-border tunnel that began near the Tijuana, Mexico, airport and was apparently used for smuggling people or drugs, a U.S. official said.

The tunnel began inside a warehouse near the airport with a cement shaft about 10 feet wide and 7 feet long. The shaft dropped about 75 feet to the tunnel, which was armslength wide and high enough for an adult to stand inside.

The tunnel floor was cement, and lights ran down the side of one of the hard soil walls. advertisement




Mexican authorities allowed reporters and photographers in the tunnel late Wednesday night. Near the entrance, authorities were seen weighing what appeared to be marijuana. Several hundred packages were wrapped with brown packing tape.

Wednesday's discovery of the exit prompted a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mack declined to provide the location of the exit and would only describe the passageway as longer than most of the 21 cross-border tunnels discovered since authorities began keeping track after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"It's massive," she said.

Mexican investigators found the entrance to the tunnel Tuesday in the warehouse about 100 yards south of the border. The tunnel was equipped with a pulley system.

Also Wednesday, U.S. and Mexican authorities found an unfinished tunnel when a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle struck a sinkhole early Wednesday near the San Ysidro border crossing, which links Tijuana and San Diego. It was about two feet underground and extended about 30 feet into the United States, near a storm drain.

"It was very, very small and extremely primitive," Mack said.

The unfinished tunnel began just south of the border in Tijuana in a vacant lot, said Jose Marquez Padilla, a Mexican Customs director. It was about three feet wide.

Four tunnels have been discovered this month in the Tijuana-San Diego area.

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