Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Camille Bains, Canadian Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) U.S. OFFICIALS LOOKING TO SEAL OFF TUNNEL Hardening Foam Could Be Injected Into The 100-Metre Underground Passageway VANCOUVER (CP) - Officials in the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration are working to permanently seal off a tunnel that was constructed to smuggle marijuana from British Columbia. Joe Giuliano, deputy chief of Border Patrol in Blaine, Wash., said Monday that military and law enforcement personnel are discussing the use of a hardening foam that would be injected into the tunnel to close it off. "Digging through that will be a heck of a lot harder than digging through the dirt in the first place," Giuliano said. "I'm pretty confident that it's down for the count once that stuff goes in." U.S. officials had been monitoring the construction of the 110-metre tunnel since earlier this year after Canadian border personnel alerted them to the possibility that a tunnel was being dug between the two countries. A joint investigation revealed that three Surrey men -- Francis Devandra Raj, 30, Timothy Woo, 34, and Johnathan Valenzuela, 27 -- allegedly built the tunnel equipped with electricity, ventilation, wood supports and ribbed steel bars to reinforce it. Construction was finished earlier this month, and U.S. police arrested the men last week after they sneaked across a load of pot. The tunnel stretched from a metal hut in Aldergrove to a point underneath the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash., where police had installed cameras and microphones. Giuliano said he has almost three times the staff since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States to be the eyes and ears at the border crossing in Blaine. Conservative MP Mark Warawa, who toured the property where the elaborate tunnel began, said the Canadian government needs to follow the U.S. example and increase the number of RCMP officers between border points. More cocaine from the U.S., often exchanged for B.C. marijuana, could have made its way back to Canada had the tunnel not been discovered, he said. "These people are not sneaking in jugs of milk." Some of the 160 border crossings have only one officer on patrol so more Mounties need to monitor between crossings, Warawa said. RCMP Supt. Bill Ard said that unlike in the U.S., where borders are patrolled, the RCMP does no such job. However, after 9/11, Ottawa funded 24 Mounties across Canada to work in the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams that exchange information with U.S. officials, Ard said. "They are working as a team except we're not in the same office," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom