Border securityMexican cartels tunnel under Arizona parking lot
On International Street in Nogales, Arizona along the U.S.-Mexico border, smugglers tunneled under the fence and neatly cut out rectangles below the pavement of parking spaces; using false-bottomed vehicles parked above the holes, smugglers would wait as individuals loaded the vehicle from below
In their latest efforts to smuggle drugs across the border, Mexican cartels have dug a series of elaborate tunnels under an Arizona parking lot with false concrete covers.
On International Street in Nogales, Arizona along the U.S.-Mexico border, smugglers tunneled under the fence and neatly cut out rectangles below the pavement of parking spaces. Using false-bottomed vehicles parked above the holes, smugglers would wait as individuals loaded the vehicle from below.
Once the transfer was completed, smugglers would then use jacks to hold the concrete covers in place and the driver would head off to distribute the drugs.
U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered sixteen tunnels leading to eighteen different parking spaces each with neat, symmetrical holes below them.
“It’s unbelievable,” Nogales mayor Arturo Garino said. “Those are the strides these people take to get the drugs across the border.”
“The [smugglers] have tried everything, and this is one of the most ingenious [methods] of them all,” Garino added.
Other methods used by smugglers include “narco subs,” drug catapults, and vehicle ramps to leap over the border.
According to Jose Garcia, a U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agent, stepped up efforts by the United States to crack down on drug cartels like increased duty patrols and more border fences have forced smugglers to resort to tunneling below the border.
“The [tunnel-building] activity levels have been skyrocketing. It has to do with all the new border security,” Garcia said.
Tunnels range from narrow hand-dug crawlways to larger concrete-reinforced passages.
“The tunnel is basically is the proverbial golden goose that can continue to lay golden eggs if it is completed,” explained Tim Dunst of the San Diego Tunnel Task Force.
In an effort to stop the smugglers, DHS advised the city of Nogales to remove the metered parking spaces on International Street, to which the city agreed. Nogales is projected to lose $8,500 in parking revenues each year as well as the cost of citations.
