Pubdate: Sun, 12 May 2002
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2002 Newsday Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Julie Watson, Associated Press

MEXICO DRUG SMUGGLERS TUNNEL UNDER BORDER

TECATE, Mexico (AP) -- It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a 
plush, floral rug -- except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping 
things cozy.

When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found 
a secret tunnel to the United States.

Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along 
the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling 
drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement 
officials on both sides of the border believe five of them started 
operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that 
heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the 
underground route.

"We firmly believe there is a direct relation to our fortification of the 
border," said Vincent Iglio, associate special agent in charge of the U.S. 
Customs Service in Tucson, Ariz.

The passage behind the fireplace was discovered in February in an isolated 
ranch house 20 miles east of the Mexican border town of Tecate. It had 
rails on which smugglers would send cocaine on electric carts on a 300-yard 
journey into the back of a staircase of a house in Tierra del Sol, Calif.

While it is believed to have gone undetected for 10 years, the other 
recently discovered tunnels seem newer and more hastily dug.

One was still under construction when U.S. Border Patrol agents stumbled 
upon it last month. Another, found in March, was built to bypass the 
entrance of another tunnel that had already been discovered and sealed with 
concrete.

The sealed tunnel, found in December, ran (85 feet) from a Nogales home in 
Arizona to a concrete drainage canal in Mexico, where smugglers covered the 
opening with a steel utility plate and resealed it with cement each time 
they used it.

U.S. Customs authorities believe it had only been operating for three 
months, in which time smugglers moved some $20 million worth of cocaine and 
marijuana.

Another tunnel believed put into operation since Sept. 11 and found last 
month ended in a parking lot near the U.S. Customs office in Nogales.

Authorities on both sides of the border are looking for more, but it's a 
tough challenge.

"We can't go around doing seismic graphs, and we can't check without a 
search warrant," said Donald Thornhill Jr., a Drug Enforcement 
Administration spokesman in San Diego.

The most elaborate tunnel was found 12 years ago. It ran 100 yards from a 
home in Agua Prieta, Mexico, to a warehouse in Douglas, Ariz. It had a rail 
car and the initial stages of a track, and was accessed by using hydraulic 
lifts that raised the entire floor of the home's game room.

Seven of the tunnels connected to storm drains linking the two cities named 
Nogales on either side of the Arizona border.

Years ago, street children lived in the drains and charged smugglers for 
the right to pass. Migrants also traipsed through the darkness until 
several drowned in a rush of floodwaters and the U.S. Border Patrol started 
monitoring the tunnels' openings on the U.S. side.

Thornhill doesn't believe terrorists might use the tunnels. "Drug 
traffickers have them pretty well locked up," he said. "It's such a bonanza 
for them. I don't think terrorists would be welcome."

The DEA suspects that the Arellano Felix gang, based in Tijuana, 65 miles 
west of Tecate, moved as much as 10 tons of drugs into the United States -- 
part of it through the fireplace tunnel.

Surrounded by miles of desert, abutting a lonely stretch of border, the 
house seemed a perfect location.

Using hydraulic tools, builders burrowed north, passing 20 feet under the 
metal border wall. They removed enough dirt to fill as many as 70 dump 
trucks, bagging it and quietly disposing of it, according to the DEA.

They installed lights and strung plastic piping along the wall for 
ventilation. The dirt walls and roof were shored up with wooden beams.

Standing guard at its opening, a Mexican federal police officer peered in 
with a reporter.

"What's it like over there?" he asked. "I heard the United States is really 
nice. I would like to go someday, but I heard it's really hard to get in."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager