Pubdate: Fri, 23 Oct 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Sandra Dibble

DRUG TUNNEL FROM TIJUANA SHUT DOWN

Cross-Border Operation Nets 12 Tons of Marijuana, 22 Suspects

The latest drug tunnel discovered between Tijuana and San Diego 
featured ventilation, lighting and a rail system capable of moving 
loads of wrapped marijuana across the border. Within hours of 
launching operations on Wednesday, the passageway was shut down, 22 
suspects were under arrest and 12 tons of marijuana had been seized 
by U.S. and Mexican authorities.

"We believe with a pretty good degree of certainty that the marijuana 
loads that began moving yesterday morning were the first drugs that 
moved through this tunnel," U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said Thursday.

The tunnel, about a half-mile in length, was one of the largest found 
in the area in recent years. It was described by U.S. officials as 
one of 10 sophisticated passageways uncovered in the area since 2006 
capable of moving large amounts of narcotics from Mexico to the United States.

Several major drug tunnels on the California border in recent years 
have been attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel, whose leader Joaquin "El 
Chapo" Guzman escaped from a maximum-security prison outside Mexico 
City in July through an elaborate tunnel. But detainees at the drug 
tunnel entrance in Tijuana told authorities there that they had been 
working for a criminal group operating in the state of Jalisco.

David Shaw, special agent in charge of Homeland Security 
Investigations (HSI) in San Diego, said Thursday that the 
investigation was continuing and that "we're not ready to make a 
public statement on that yet." U.S. authorities said the tunnel's 
discovery on Wednesday came after an investigation launched last May 
in San Diego by HSI involving two undercover agents.

According to court documents, an undercover HSI agent made contact 
with one of the suspects, a 53-year-old Mexican citizen named Isaias 
Enriquez Acosta. The undercover agent was told that drivers would 
receive $10,000 per load to move "stuff," which he understood to be 
drugs, from a warehouse near the U.S. border.

The warehouse turned out to be the tunnel's U.S. exit in a building 
on Otay Center Drive near Customhouse Plaza, just west of the Otay 
Mesa Port of Entry.

The undercover HSI agent and a companion picked up their first load 
about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday and drove it to the second warehouse at an 
undisclosed location. There, they unloaded about 249 bundles of a 
"green leafy substance containing the strong odor of marijuana and 
wrapped in clear plastic," according to the court documents.

At 11:15 a.m., the HSI agent met with Enriquez and a second suspect, 
a 27-year-old Mexican citizen named Isidro Silva Acosta, at a San 
Diego restaurant. There, they made arrangements to move a second load.

But at 5:30 p.m., 30 agents with HSI's Special Response Team moved in 
on the Otay Center Drive warehouse, arresting Silva, according to a 
news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Enriquez was arrested 
at a nearby hotel, it said.

Inside the warehouse, agents found a hole about 3 feet in diameter 
that dropped down about 32 feet and led to an underground tunnel. 
Peering inside the passageway, agents saw additional plastic-wrapped 
bundles. By Thursday, the U.S. agents had seized close to 2 tons of 
marijuana from the warehouse and the tunnel.

Silva and Enriquez were arraigned Thursday in federal court. They 
were charged with unlawful conspiracy to import a controlled 
substance and conspiracy to use border tunnels and passages.

Duffy said four additional suspects were arrested by the San Diego 
County Sheriff's Department, "in connection with the movement of the 
marijuana from the undercover warehouse" to various San Diego 
residences and businesses.

Duffy said they would be charged by the San Diego District Attorney's 
Office. The District Attorney's Office and the Sheriff's Department 
declined to reveal the suspects' names on Thursday.

In Mexico, federal police announced the arrests of 16 suspects at a 
warehouse that covered the tunnel's Tijuana entrance south of the 
border fence. A statement said that "an intense movement of trucks 
and vans came and went," from that location, "apparently to drop off 
drugs for their transfer to the United States."

The suspects, ranging in age from 21 to 50, told federal prosecutors 
that their task was to wrap the marijuana and send it, the statement 
said. All but one of the detainees said they were from the state of Sinaloa.

The passageway dropped about 30 feet from the warehouse, according to 
Mexican authorities. The tunnel was shored up with metal tubes to 
avoid its collapse, they said. It included lights and ventilation, 
and a rail system to move the drugs. According to preliminary 
calculations, the tunnel measured about 2,600 feet, with 
three-fourths of its extension in Mexican territory.

Authorities seized 873 packages weighing about 10 tons that were 
headed to the U.S., the statement said.

U.S. authorities have detected more than 80 cross-border smuggling 
tunnels in the last five years, with most of them in California and Arizona.

The clay soil of the Otay Mesa area offers stability for cross-border 
tunnels that would be more likely to crumble in sandy soils found 
elsewhere, U.S. authorities say. The area also has warehouses on both 
sides of the border, making it easy to blend in, Duffy said, and 
quick routes to interstate
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom