Pubdate: Wed, 6 Mar 2002
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Author: Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post

MEXICAN TUNNEL PROVES BORDER TOUGH TO SEAL

Cops Blame Tijuana Drug Cartel

Tierra Del Sol, San Diego County -- Down the dust-blown driveway, past a 
chain-link fence and the Keep Out sign, past the beefy Rottweiler and the 
tire swing, in a closet under the staircase in a little two-story bungalow, 
Mexico's most violent drug lords kept a secret at Johnson's pig farm.

When U.S. drug agents broke into the closet last week, they found a large 
safe. They opened it and found nothing. Then they spotted the false floor. 
And when they pried it up, they found the entrance to a 1,200-foot tunnel 
- -- complete with electric lights, ventilation ducts and wooden walls -- 
that ended in a fireplace in a house just beyond the metal wall that 
separates the United States from Mexico.

Investigators are calling the tunnel in this remote section of rocky border 
scrubland, 70 miles east of San Diego near a small town called Tecate, one 
of the most lucrative drug-smuggling mechanisms ever discovered along the 
U.S.- Mexico frontier.

"It's one of the most significant finds ever along the Southwestern border, 
" said Errol Chavez, special agent in charge of the San Diego office of the 
U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "They used this tunnel to smuggle 
billions of dollars worth of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs into the 
United States for several years."

Chavez, speaking to reporters in San Diego, said investigators believe the 
tunnel was built at least two or three years ago by the notorious Tijuana, 
Mexico, cartel headed by several brothers in the Arellano Felix family. He 
said the Arellano Felixes moved tons of drugs in carts that rolled on 
railroad-style tracks through the tunnel, which is about 20 feet below ground.

The drugs were then likely loaded into pickups and other small trucks, 
which were used to deliver the goods to Los Angeles and beyond.

Other Rings Used Tunnel

Chavez said investigators have learned that the Arellano Felixes charged 
other smuggling rings a fee to use the tunnel. He said that the tunnel 
seems to have been used exclusively for drugs and that there was no 
evidence that illegal immigrants were also moved through it.

The tunnel, which is 4 feet square, offers further evidence of the 
difficulty of sealing the 2,000-mile border despite efforts to cut off drug 
smuggling and illegal immigration. Since Sept. 11, border security has been 
sharply increased and drug seizures are way up. But Vincent Bond, a 
spokesman for the Customs Service in San Diego, said the tunnel shows that 
when one route is closed to smugglers, they find a new one.

Tunnels are nothing new along the border. Several have been discovered 
since 1990. The largest one, found in 1993, stretched about 1,452 feet 
under the border at Tijuana. That tunnel was never used because it was 
discovered just before it was completed. Chavez said it belonged to drug 
lord Joaquin Guzman, known as "El Chapo," who tried to keep the tunnel 
secret by murdering the workers who dug it.

No arrests have been made on the U.S. side in the pig farm tunnel case. 
Chavez said investigators from the DEA and the Customs Service, which 
assisted in last week's raid, are seeking several suspects, including a man 
who leased the house and was living there.

Drugs Caught En Route

Mexican police said they have detained for questioning two people who were 
found in the house at the Mexican end of the tunnel during the raid.

Chavez also said that about 550 pounds of freshly packed marijuana was 
found in the tunnel, suggesting that it had been in use until very 
recently. Here in Tierra del Sol, DEA officers continued to patrol the pig 
farm, where two small houses sit amid signs of normal life, including 
several dogs, picnic tables, an old slide and a swing set, as well as 
rusting trucks.

A small caretaker's house had few furnishings beyond a couple of 
floral-print couches and a television set. Just beyond the other small, 
barn-style bungalow sits Mexico, behind an eight-foot green metal fence 
that was erected in 1995 as part of a stepped-up security program known as 
Operation Gatekeeper.

In the 1980s, the property was owned by Elbert Lushen Johnson until it was 
seized by federal authorities because of drug-smuggling activity and sold 
at auction. Chavez said Johnson is serving time in prison after being 
convicted of cocaine smuggling in Arkansas in 2000.

The property's current owners, Belinda and Raul Alvarado, bought the house 
in 1995. Chavez said they have been questioned by the DEA. He said 
authorities do not know the name of the man who leased the house from the 
Alvarados, and he is being sought for questioning. Chavez said officials 
are unsure whether the Alvarados were aware of illegal activity on their 
property. They have not been charged with any crime.
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