Sinaloa cartel is behind two border tunnels, Mexican officials say

Mexican authorities are reporting that the Sinaloa cartel is responsible for two tunnels whose entrances were discovered west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.

In a statement issued Monday, the Mexican federal attorney general’s office said that one of the tunnels led to San Diego and had been in operation. Video images provided by the agency showed a passageway — with rails, ventilation and lighting — supported by wood beams.

“Presumably, one of these tunnels was being used by a criminal organization operating in the state of Sinaloa for the smuggling of drugs into the United States,” according to the federal agency.

Authorities also reported finding the entrance to an incomplete tunnel.

According to the statement, the searches were conducted jointly by the attorney general’s office with Mexico’s national defense secretariat and federal police. They took place days after unconfirmed reports surfaced about the discovery of two tunnels in the area.

The statement cited the U.S. consulate as the source of “reliable information that the cross-border tunnel was being reactivated.”

The tunnel entrances were within blocks of each other in a warehouse area south of the U.S. border fence. The discovery comes less than two months after authorities on both sides of the border confirmed the discovery of a tunnel with an entrance west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry that led from from an ice-making business near the Tijuana airport.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, which leads an inter-agency tunnel task force in San Diego, had no comment on Tuesday.

U.S. authorities have reported the detection of more than 75 cross-border smuggling tunnels over the last five years, most of them in California and Arizona.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

Dibble writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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