‘Longest-Ever’ Smuggling Tunnel Found Across Mexican Border

U.S. border officials released information Wednesday on a 4,309-foot smuggling tunnel that crosses the Mexican border. The tunnel, which is now the longest ever created, runs from an industrial site in Mexico‘s Tijuana city through to San Diego in California, the BBC reported.

This past August, Mexican officials identified the entrance in Tijuana. Since then, U.S. security has worked to map out the entire length of the tunnel. What they have found so far shows a passageway over five feet in height that has a built-in rail track, electrical cables, drainage, and air ventilation system – tools to make it easy for sophisticated smugglers to transport their goods.

The New York Times reported that Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Agent in Charge John W. Callery stated the tunnel shows there are vast amounts of money fuelling the drug cartels, while also highlighting the determination of law enforcement to crack down on illegal trade.

“Although the cartels will continue to use their resources to try and breach our border, the DEA and our partners on the Tunnel Task Force will continue to use our resources to ensure they fail, that our border is secure, and that tunnels like this are shut down to stem the flow of deadly drugs entering the United States.”

What is known is that one of the world’s biggest drug trafficking organizations is active in the area – Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The cartel’s founder, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is currently serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

Cardell Morant, acting special agent for San Diego Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, told BBC criminals will go to great lengths to construct tunnels to smuggle their loot.

“The sophistication and length of this particular tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling.”

Uncovering and destroying smuggler tunnels is a game of cat and mouse; since 2016 over a dozen sophisticated tunnels have been discovered on the California-Mexico border.

President Donald Trump has vowed to tackle the U.S.-Mexico drug trafficking and immigration problems with the building of a controversial border wall. He went so far as to declare a national emergency over the border crisis to access security funding for the wall.

However, according to officials, most illegal goods are smuggled through legal entry points or mixed in with other goods and hidden in transport vehicles. This casts questions over whether the building of a wall would affect any real change in the fight against drug smuggling.