Nov. 17--Federal authorities discovered another cross-border drug-smuggling tunnel this week in a Nogales rental house.
The newest underground passageway was discovered about a half mile west of the downtown Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry underneath the wooden front porch of a rental house on West International Street, which runs parallel to the U.S.-Mexico border, said Kevin Kelly, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations in Nogales.
The 70-foot tunnel measured 3 feet wide by 2 feet tall and had some shoring to keep it from collapsing, he said. It was dug 4 feet underground in the U.S. before dropping to depths of up to 22 feet. It started about 25 feet into Mexico in an east-west drainage tunnel, Kelly said.
Agents believe the tunnel had been used for only a short time. Smugglers moved bundles of marijuana through the tunnel, then removed the wooden planks on the porch to load the drugs into a car, Kelly said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, with help from Nogales police, had gathered reliable information about the tunnel and served a search warrant at the residence Tuesday night, Kelly said.
Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police crawled into the tunnel and tracked it to the starting point in Mexico, Kelly said.
No marijuana was found, and no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation, Kelly said.
Tuesday was a busy day for tunnel discoveries along the U.S.-Mexico border. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents found a 1,200-foot tunnel west of San Diego in an Otay Mesa industrial park that started in Tijuana, Mexico, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. The 4-by-3-foot tunnel had structural supports, electricity and ventilation, the agency said in a press release.
Agents found nearly 3 tons of marijuana in a truck that had left the warehouse and another 6.5 tons of marijuana in the warehouse.
DID YOU KNOW?
This week's tunnel discovery was the first in Arizona in the new fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Colleen Agle.
This is the second tunnel discovered in a rental house in Nogales this year. In May, a 30-foot-long tunnel was discovered in a hillside rental house. Another was discovered in a rental house in Douglas in August.
About 65 tunnels have been found in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector since fiscal year 2007, most of them in Nogales.
Copyright 2011 - The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
