'Extraordinary' US-Mexico Drug Tunnel Found

One of the biggest and best-engineered cross-border drug tunnels yet has been found by drug enforcement agents in the US. The 755-foot tunnel linked a warehouse in southwestern Arizona with a derelict ice-making plant behind a strip club in Mexico, reports the Los Angeles Times. It could only be accessed through 57-foot deep shafts on either side and authorities believe that its builders, probably the Sinaloa cartel, must have employed professional engineers. Another, unfinished, tunnel has been found beginning under a warehouse in Tijuana.

The Arizona tunnel was discovered after state police seized a 39-pound load of methamphetamine. Investigators believe it took a year and more than $1 million to build, but had not been in use for very long, as the floor showed little wear and barrels of dirt were still on the warehouse premises. "As drug cases go, we didn't get a whole lot of dope in this seizure," a DEA agent says, "but when you think about how much cartel time and effort and money went into this tunnel—we really ruined somebody's day." (More tunnel stories.)