ICE officials are pushing to find the purchasers, but vendors say it is difficult to be sure of buyers' identities. Only a handful of companies produce the specialised drills normally used for laying subterranean pipelines and other infrastructure projects.
Officials believe cartels are turning to smaller horizontal drills that dig the length of a tunnel fast and can easily be hidden in warehouses, a favoured location among smugglers trying to blend into industrial areas along the border. A well built tunnel could be used to move 25 tonnes of drugs in one or two days, he said. "If it's the Sinaloa cartel, they have unlimited resources," Durst said. The drilling equipment costs between NZ$65,000 and NZ$90,000, and officials say they have no way to stop cartels from obtaining the high-powered gear. "You can have a tunnel done in a couple of weeks." "It's super fast, it's really actually scary," said Tim Durst, assistant special agent in charge of ICE's San Diego office. To burrow deep and long - one tunnel stretched 4km - smugglers employ powerful machinery, some of which can bore a small hole deep in the soil and create a walled shaft without having to send anyone below ground. That tunnel, replete with a hydraulically controlled steel door, elevator and electric rail tracks, was built by the Sinaloa cartel, which controls the California-Mexico border area where the bulk of subterranean passages are, he said. "The machinery they use for construction is really sophisticated." "It's evident that those who constructed these tunnels are specialists, not only for the size but also because it requires study of the soil to prevent it from caving in," said General Gilberto Landeros, a Mexican army commander, during the recent discovery of a Tijuana tunnel.
Two drug passageways were discovered along the California border in the past month, including one about 484m long in San Diego.Īuthorities seized over 32 tonnes of marijuana, worth NZ$84 million, there after busting drivers hauling drugs from the tunnel's end at a faux produce warehouse to an industrial suburb outside Los Angeles. Officials suspect most recently found tunnels belong to the Sinaloa cartel, which has been perfecting its technique for two decades using specialised technology and a cadre of trained builders.Īgents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are trying to shut the tunnels down, working with the few companies that have the technology and equipment to dig deep and long horizontal shafts to prevent tunnel construction. There have been more than 100 tunnels discovered during President Felipe Calderon's five years in office, double the number found over the previous 15 years. In the past five years, a crackdown on drug smugglers in Mexico and tighter US border security above ground has led to a dramatic increase in the use, and the sophistication, of tunnels under the border. US customs agents seized more than 900kg of cocaine which had allegedly been smuggled along the underground route. The architect "made me one f-ing cool tunnel" Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006.īuilt below a pool table in his lawyer's home, the tunnel was among the first of an increasingly sophisticated drug transport system used by Guzman's Sinaloa cartel.
When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico's most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the US-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed. DRUG SMUGGLING: Part of a tunnel found under the Mexico-US border in Tijuana in November.