Tunnel Under Border May Be 20 Years Old

SAN DIEGO —  At least once a week, the Tijuana attorney would pay a visit to his white ranch house on the outskirts of Tecate, just south of the U.S. border. Come on, he told the two caretakers living in the house. I’ll take you to town and we’ll do some shopping.

Mexican federal police believe the lawyer, who has since disappeared, was distracting the occupants while drug traffickers transported billions of dollars worth of illegal narcotics through a secret tunnel that ran underneath the house to the U.S. side of the border.

A 21/2-month-long investigation of the underground passageway, discovered by American drug agents in late February, has revealed a sophisticated operation that officials believe was active for at least a decade, far longer than they originally thought.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials say the tunnel was one of the most profitable smuggling avenues used by the notorious Arellano Felix drug cartel to transport drugs to the U.S. and bring weapons and money back into Mexico.

“What’s scary is that here we have so much security along the border, yet they could have moved so much product without being caught,” said Donald Thornhill Jr., a spokesman for the DEA’s San Diego office. “It’s humbling when you just consider the length of time we think this thing was being used.”

So far, no one has been charged with building the tunnel or smuggling narcotics through it. DEA officials declined to comment on whether they have any suspects, citing an ongoing investigation.

This is not the first drug tunnel found burrowed under the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is one of the most elaborate. The examination of the secret corridor, which has been cemented shut, provided agents with clues to an extensive construction process that may have taken as long as two years.

Digging through the hard soil, pocked with rocks, would have been a backbreaking endeavor that required the use of jackhammers, drills and picks, at a pace of probably a foot a day, DEA officials said.

When it was completed, however, the corridor provided a near-foolproof way to transport contraband undetected. In fact, the smugglers using the corridor were so confident in its security that when DEA agents discovered the passageway on Feb. 27, acting on a tip from a previous drug seizure, they found 300 pounds of marijuana inside.

The tunnel began under a fireplace in the ranch house outside Tecate, where a hydraulic lift was used to move a steel grate in the floor, revealing a passageway below.

Investigators believe a small room below the fireplace was used as a staging area to sort and package drugs. From there, the 875-foot passageway wended its way through the earth to a barn-style house in a rural area of eastern San Diego County known as Tierra del Sol. At the end of the tunnel, a ladder led up to a floor safe hidden behind a staircase in the house. The safe and the staircase could be swung open with levers.

The designers of the operation had to know about engineering, welding and electrical wiring, officials said.

“They did a real bang-up job,” Thornhill said.

The 4-by-4-foot tunnel was reinforced with planks of wood that covered the entire length of the passageway. Railroad tracks were laid along the floor to transport a battery-operated cart, which pulled two flatbed cars. A ventilation pipe ran the length of the passageway, and lightbulbs were strung from the ceiling every 50 feet.

Using the rail carts, a shipment of drugs could reach the other side of the border in minutes.

U.S. officials believe the tunnel may have existed in a rough form as long as 20 years ago, as a small “rabbit hole” used by traffickers to get drugs north without detection.

A more formal tunnel was probably constructed about 10 or 12 years ago, when the homes that covered the openings on either side were being built, Mexican and U.S. officials said.

At that time, neighbors on the Mexican side saw trucks carting away large amounts of dirt from the site, but never thought much of it, according to Miguel Angel de la Torre, general director of tactical support for the Mexican federal preventive police.

U.S. officials suspect Manuel Herrera Barraza, the Tecate head of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, of running narcotics through the tunnel or charging other smugglers for using it. Herrera is in custody in Mexico City on separate narcotics charges, and Mexican federal police said they are still investigating his connection to the underground passageway.

Immediately after the discovery of the tunnel, Mexican officials detained the two caretakers who lived in the Tecate house, but de la Torre said they are no longer suspects.

The couple told Mexican investigators they were hired by a Tijuana man several years ago to take care of the house.

“They told us there was something funny about it, because of how often he took them shopping,” de la Torre said. “But he bought groceries and clothes for them and their neighbors. That hooked them into going with him and not asking questions.”

Mexican investigators, who believe the man was using a pseudonym, have not been able to locate him.

“We still have a long way to go” to apprehend those involved, de la Torre added.

During the time the tunnel was active, the 50-acre property on the U.S. side was a pig ranch owned by a man named Elbert Johnson, who was arrested in Hope, Ark., in November 2001 for transporting 2,500 pounds of cocaine, according to federal law enforcement authorities. He was convicted and is serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison.

The land was then purchased by a couple, Belinda and Raul Alvarado, according to property records, who rented out the buildings on the property. When drug agents discovered the passageway, the home concealing the tunnel had been unoccupied for six months.

The Alvarados told investigators they were not aware of the tunnel.

When contacted by a reporter, Belinda Alvarado said she could not comment on the matter, upon advice of her attorney.

Since the recent death of one of the Arellano Felix brothers and the apprehension of another, U.S. officials said they have been receiving tips about more tunnels under the border.

But finding the passageways is not easy, Thornhill said.

“We can’t just go onto private property and look for tunnels,” he said. “We have to have a reason.”