Drug Tunnels Evolving Amid Increased US-Mexico Border Security Jean Guerrero - KPBS
go to original June 21, 2017

KPBS Fronteras reporter Jean Guerrero traveled to the Otay Mesa border, where she got a first hand look at how these tunnels are changing. (KPBS News)

Under the corrugated steel plates that divide the U.S. and Mexico in Otay Mesa, dozens of clandestine cross-border tunnels slash through the soil.

As President Trump looks to build new barriers along the border, criminal organizations in Mexico are improving the tunnels they use to smuggle people and drugs under the border fence – making them smaller and maintaining a high level of sophistication, featuring electricity and railways.

Smuggling tunnels vary in shape and size, but generally fall under one of these three categories, according to U.S. Border Patrol:

• Rudimentary tunnels, or “gopher holes,” are cheaply made and stretch short distances, maybe 50 feet. They are used to smuggle humans or small quantities of drugs under the border.

• Interconnecting tunnels exploit existing municipal infrastructure, linking up with storm drains and sewer lines. They are used to smuggle humans and drugs under the border.

• Sophisticated tunnels can stretch for long distances (the longest ever found was equivalent to the length of eight football fields) and are often equipped with lighting, electricity, ventilation, water pumps, railways and more. They are used to move large volumes of drugs under the border.

This graphic shows different types of clandestine cross-border tunnels (KPBS)

In San Diego, tunnels are usually sophisticated, partly because of the highly organized criminal organization operating in Baja California – the Sinaloa Cartel – as well as the characteristics of Otay Mesa, a neighborhood that exists on both sides of the border. In the U.S. and in Mexico, Otay Mesa is crowded with warehouses, providing numerous spaces to hide tunnel entry and exit points.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, in the past three decades, 29 of the 62 sophisticated tunnels that have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border were in the San Diego sector. Meanwhile, of the 197 total tunnels discovered along the border, 62 were in the San Diego sector. These figures exclude about a hundred unfinished tunnels found on the Mexican side of the border.

Read the rest at KPBS

Related: On the Mexican Border, a Case for Technology Over Concrete (The New York Times)

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