DEA Couldn’t Verify Tips on Drug Tunnel

As authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border pressed the investigation into an international “narco-tunnel,” U.S. drug enforcement officials said Thursday that they had looked into previous reports of possible border tunnels in the area without success.

The estimated 1,500-foot tunnel, discovered by Mexican police conducting an intense search for the killers of Guadalajara’s Roman Catholic cardinal, begins under a warehouse in a Tijuana industrial area and ends beneath a road just south of a warehouse under construction in south San Diego.

The subterranean passageway was built by Mexico’s foremost drug cartel and could have served as a smuggling conduit for tons of drugs when complete, according to law enforcement officials.

At a crowded news conference at the Tijuana warehouse, Drug Enforcement Administration agents said that they have received tips and heard rumors during the last two years about tunnels being dug by narcotics traffickers who operate at the border.

“From time to time, we have received information about tunnels under the border,” DEA chief Julius Beretta said.

The reports have been taken seriously because an operating drug tunnel was found across the Arizona border in 1990, authorities said, but inquiries did not turn up anything.

And after this week’s tunnel discovery, Beretta said, “It is possible there are other tunnels under the Southwest border.”

A special team of Mexican federal officers was led to the tunnel Monday by documents turned up in a raid on a safehouse that investigators say belonged to wanted drug kingpin Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman. In April, Guzman’s cartel suffered another setback when Mexican officers intercepted a northbound shipment of seven tons of cocaine, concealed in canned jalapeno chilies, in the border town of Tecate.

Federal agents are investigating the ownership of the U.S. land and the planned cannery business. They revealed little new information about the inquiry Thursday, although a Mexican federal police spokesman reiterated what U.S. agents said Wednesday: authorities believe that the U.S. warehouse was the planned destination of the sophisticated passageway.

“The work on the tunnel was not complete, but it’s destination was a building under construction in U.S. territory,” Mexican police said in a statement.

The parcel is owned by Alberto P. Zamora, according to San Diego County records, which also list Arlen Development Co. of Victorville. A woman who answered the phone at the company Thursday said she knew of the San Diego property but knew nothing about the owner and could not comment further.

Construction of the cannery began about 2 1/2 months ago, according to a businessman familiar with the project who asked to not be identified. The owner, identified as Zamora, occasionally visited the site and may have at least one partner, the businessman said.

Zamora bought the property in an otherwise unbuilt section of an Otay Mesa business park in October for $1,133,000, records show. The seller was a company affiliated with the family of Roque de la Fuente, a prominent local businessman with extensive landholdings in the area.

Neither buyer nor seller could be reached for comment Thursday.

Mexico-U.S. Drug Highway

U.S. authorities say the expertly built tunnel, only 100 feet from completion, would have been used to move drugs from Mexico to the United States.

All the extras Air-conditioning: units in warehouse pumped in oxygen. Electricity: Lighting system installed. Flooring: Poured concrete floor allowed easy travel for carts. Reinforced walls: Wood and concrete.

How it was built Air hammers and drills. Dirt and rocks were removed with buckets and carts, then brought the dirt to the surface with a generator-powered winch and pulley.

How it was found Mexican federal judicial police hammered through the false floor of a bathroom in the warehouse on the Mexican side.

The Mexican connection 70% of U.S. cocaine supply comes through Mexico Mexico is the No. 1 source for the opium gum that is refined into heroin in the United States.

Tunnel’s Dimensions 65 feet down 1,450 feet long 5 feet high 3 to 4 feet wide