USA authorities investigating a brand new beautifully-built three bedroom home in Southern California learn the house was covering the entrance of a tunnel running across the Mexican border and used by drug traffickers.
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The owner of the house in Calexico where the cross-border drug tunnel opening was discovered was arrested Thursday in Tucson, Arizona, federal officials said.
The US end of the tunnel they built uniquely opened up in Calexico, which is further inland and has harder soil, making it harder to dig. Agents seized almost 3,000 pounds of marijuana and arrested five people including Cruz. “This house and tunnel were constructed right under the watchful eye of law enforcement”. “But for the builders, for the financiers, for the operators of these passageways, there’s no light at the end of these tunnels”.
It is the 75th secret passage between the United States and Mexico discovered in the last decade, and the 12th specifically connecting California with America’s southern neighbor.
Federal investigators were monitoring the property throughout the construction of the home, and listened in on phone calls between Cruz and his father during which they discussed the tunnel.
“The Mexico-US border is like a block of cheese with holes in it, with tunnels across it”, author and journalist Ioan Grillo told Business Insider.
While the tunnel discovered this week was the first one found in Calexico in years, smuggling tunnels are a prominent feature of the criminal landscape on the US-Mexico border, particularly in the US southwest. Prosecutors say the first tunnel shipment occurred February 28, leading to the seizure of 1,350 pounds of marijuana in Los Angeles.
A US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Response Team agent looking into tunnel exit point during an investigation of a cross-border tunnel linking Calexico, California, and Mexicali, Mexico, in Calexico, California, March 23, 2016. Some have been equipped with hydraulic lifts and electric rail cars. They were arraigned in a federal court in El Centro, California and charged with conspiracy to import marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to maintain drug premises. Two were taken into custody in Arizona and two in Calexico. The group’s leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, escaped from Mexican prison in July through a tunnel and was captured again in January.
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Cruz and three other people were arrested and face charges, including drug trafficking and money laundering.
