A recent history of California's underground tunnels used for drug smuggling
Three of them were conspicuously located around a government facility in San Diego
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If you want to cross the border quickly and efficiently, you can go to the Global Entry Enrollment Center in San Diego’s Otay Mesa neighborhood for a SENTRI pass.
Or, at various points over the past 15 years, you could have used one of four underground tunnels constructed by drug traffickers — three of which were conveniently located near that Global Entry facility.
I searched the federal court system’s Southern District of California, which includes San Diego and Imperial counties, for criminal complaints about cross-border tunnels used by drug trafficking organizations since 2000.
It turned up nine cases.
Six of those cases mentioned specific addresses of the U.S. end of the tunnel. Two of the tunnels were mentioned in two cases each, meaning there were four tunnels altogether: three in Otay Mesa and one in the Imperial County border city of Calexico.
Here’s a quick timeline of how they were uncovered by federal agents and what they were being used for:
Calexico, Imperial County, California
902 Third St.
December 2009
Mexican military tipped off ICE agents in the U.S. about a tunnel for drug smuggling with an entry/exit point in a Calexico warehouse, according to this federal complaint.
ICE agents got a search warrant for the warehouse, located at 902 Third St.
Inside the tunnel, they found a receipt from Roadway Inn and Suites Hotel in El Centro, California, with a name on it.
That person was arrested on drug smuggling charges, including importation of cocaine and meth.
According to the complaint, he said someone he knew only as “Harrison” offered him and three other guys $300 (each, presumably) to build a 5-foot by 7-foot border tunnel between the warehouse and Mexico.
The ICE agent who filed the charges wrote that he has seen “numerous investigations involving tunnels from Mexicali (Mexico) to the United States.”
March 2016
Almost seven years later at the same address, Homeland Security Investigations arrested another defendant who bought the property for $240,000, built a residence on it and continued drug smuggling operations with a tunnel. There were also two nearby stash houses.
It’s unclear what happened to the property after the 2009 case. Did this defendant have to reconstruct the tunnel? Was it left intact all those years?
There’s only one vague sentence that references the property’s past, but it doesn’t mention drug smuggling: “At the time of the sale, there was only a dilapidated warehouse on the Calexico Third Street Property.”
It also says that the defendant had the contractor leave a hole in the foundation of the newly built residence, but it’s unclear if the hole connected to the tunnel that already existed or a newly constructed one.
Agents surveilled the comings and goings from the Third Street property and nearby stash houses, including a 1,350-pound shipment of cannabis that went to Los Angeles.
The defendant faced multiple charges, including importing drugs, money laundering and conspiracy to maintain a drug-related property.
San Diego County, California
9948 Via De La Amistad
November 2010
Multiple defendants faced drug smuggling charges from their work at a warehouse in the Otay Mesa section of San Diego, located at 9948 Via De La Amistad, where they allegedly stored cannabis that they brought in through a cross-border tunnel in the property.
On Nov. 2, charges were filed against two defendants after they stopped at a California Highway Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, about 70 miles north of Otay Mesa, in their tractor trailer. Officers found more than 800 packages with about 19,400 pounds of cannabis.
Earlier that day, ICE agents who were conducting surveillance saw the tractor trailer leave from the Otay Mesa warehouse.
The driver had also previously pled guilty to smuggling cocaine and faced an indictment for possessing 38 pounds of weed, according to the complaint.
He told law enforcement he was being paid $10,000 to drive the product to Los Angeles, the complaint adds. He and the passenger, whom he said was his wife, were both charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
Days later, agents filed charges against two more defendants from the same warehouse.
One defendant was another tractor trailer driver who, after being arrested, said he agreed to $3,000 per trip to drive cannabis up to Los Angeles. He said he had already completed four trips with what he estimated was 10,000 pounds of product on each trip.
In a twist on lease-to-own, he also told agents that his smuggling activities were payments toward the tractor trailer, which he would’ve eventually owned.
Before the arrest, agents saw him meet with another person. This second person, who became the second defendant in this case, gave agents permission to search his car and hotel room, according to the complaint. That search turned up a little bit of meth and documents related to the first defendant’s tractor trailer.
As they prepared to search the warehouse, ICE agents reported hearing noise from the tunnel, likely workers fleeing to the Mexican side once they knew law enforcement was coming. The agents also reported finding 32,000 pounds of weed in the warehouse.
10145 Via De La Amistad
July 2013 to April 2014
Homeland Security Investigations started accumulating information about a cross-border underground tunnel between a mini storage facility in Tijuana, located about 800 feet south of the border, and an Otay Mesa warehouse at 10145 Via De La Amistad. This warehouse was located less than a quarter-mile from the above-mentioned one.
Based on surveillance of the warehouse, there didn’t seem to be any legitimate business activity. They did notice one person who was frequently at the propert.
The complaint doesn’t go into much detail. It says agents “contacted” that person, who eventually became the defendant, and “subsequently found a concealed cross-border narcotics tunnel inside in the Amistad Warehouse.”
In a post-arrest interview, the defendant said he had been hired to make it look like there was legitimate business activity in the warehouse. He added that the tunnel was, in fact, used for smuggling drugs. The complaint mentions “controlled substances,” but doesn’t specify any drugs that were transported through the tunnel or stored in the warehouse.
2587 Otay Center Drive
October 2015
Yet another Otay Mesa warehouse, 1.2 miles from the first one and 1.3 miles from the second, according to Google.
Homeland Security Investigations undercover agents started working with the eventual defendants in this case on cannabis smuggling operations out of this warehouse, located at 2587 Otay Center Drive. They worked on transporting the drugs to another warehouse that the agents were using for purposes of this operation.
A search warrant at the Otay Center Drive warehouse led agents to a tunnel entrance that descended 32 feet underground and across the border to Mexico.