SAN DIEGO — For years, American drug agents heard whispers about the existence of one or more tunnels for ferrying drugs beneath the U.S.-Mexico border in the remote, boulder-strewn reaches of eastern San Diego County.
This week, aided by leads from an earlier drug seizure, they found such a passage: a tunnel the length of four football fields, complete with electricity, ventilation pipes and rails for hauling carts of contraband under the border fence in a rural stretch of eastern San Diego County. The agents also reported finding 500 pounds of marijuana at the mouth of the tunnel on the U.S. side of the border.
Authorities said Thursday that they think smugglers used the 1,200-foot-long subterranean route for three years or more, shuttling perhaps tons of marijuana and cocaine to a house on a former pig ranch in the community of Tierra del Sol, about 55 miles east of downtown San Diego. Officials said there was no indication it was used to smuggle illegal immigrants.
The discovery of the 4-by-4-foot tunnel on Wednesday added a strange chapter to border lore and, officials said, could stand out as a major law-enforcement coup. Though the passage is not the first to be unearthed along the U.S.-Mexico border, officials said it was noteworthy for its sophistication and for how long it had been in use.
"I think it's one of the most significant finds ever on the Southwest border," said Errol J. Chavez, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's office in San Diego.
Agents displayed aerial photographs of the U.S. property, a shaded barn-style house where the tunnel ended beneath a lift-up staircase, 1,000 feet north of the border. The photographs also showed a single-story tile-roofed home in Tecate, Mexico, that held the tunnel's opposite opening, about 200 feet south of the fence.
The builders took great pains to disguise their project, hiding the U.S. entrance beneath the false floor of a hidden safe and the Mexican opening in a fireplace piled with ashes. The tunnel was lined most of the way with wood paneling and lighted by electricity. Plastic pipe carried fresh air to the deepest part of the tunnel, 35 feet below the surface.
Smugglers apparently used rail carts to move their cargo and may have done so recently. Chavez said the 500-pound marijuana stash appeared fresh.
"[The tunnel] was very sophisticated," Chavez said during a news conference at the DEA office in San Diego. "It was very secure and obviously used for a long time."
