Douglas Coleman, special agent in charge of the Phoenix division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said investigators can’t yet say for sure if the tunnel, estimated to cost $1.5 million to build, was operated by the powerful Sinaloa cartel. Still, authorities suspect cartel involvement because the group from Sinaloa controls smuggling routes into Arizona.
In this undated photo provided by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, shows a 240-yard, a complete and fully operational drug smuggling tunnel, from the U.S. side of the tunnel, that ran from a small business in Arizona to an ice plant on the Mexico side of the border, Thursday, July 12, 2012, in San Luis, Ariz.
Two drug-smuggling tunnels outfitted with lighting and ventilation systems were discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border, the latest signs that cartels are building sophisticated passages to escape heightened surveillance on land.
Both tunnels were at least 150 yards long. One began under a bathroom sink inside a warehouse in Tijuana but was unfinished and didn’t cross the border into San Diego. The Mexican army found the tunnel Wednesday.
The other was completed and discovered Saturday in a vacant strip mall storefront in the southwestern Arizona city of San Luis. It showed a level of sophistication not typically associated with other crude smuggling passageways that tie into storm drains in the state.
“When you see what is there and the way they designed it, it wasn’t something that your average miner could put together,” said Douglas Coleman, special agent in charge of the Phoenix division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “You would need someone with some engineering expertise to put something together like this.”
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