MARIJUANA SMUGGLING TUNNELS BUILT BY ENGINEERS PROTECTED BY THE CARTELS

Some of those tunnels cost about $1 million and can take up to nine months to contruct.

CARTELS BEST KEPT SECRET: NARCO TUNNEL ENGINEERS

Borderland Beat
February 6, 2013

Otay Mesa, Calif.-Federal agents who spend their days in search of the narco tunnels used to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the United States know the signs of an illegal passage, hidden in the maze of merchandise in warehouses in this border community on the outskirts of Tijuana.

They know that large tunnels cost about $ 1 million and that their construction can take up to nine months. They know the alleged drug kingpin behind the most sophisticated passages-including one that has a electric rail system - those that have been appearing on the border with alarming frequency.

But a mystery remains constant in the heart of the phenomenon of narcotúneles: the identity of the people who designed and built these feats of engineering.

While border agents focus on investigating and dismantling the networks that fund and use these tunnels, finding engineers is crucial, federal agents say.

"It resembles winning the lottery of public safety," said Derek Benner, special agent in charge of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S., in the city of San Diego. "These guys would be a valuable and abundant source of information for us."

Drug traffickers have been digging under the border for two decades. Since 1990, 159 tunnels have been discovered crossing the U.S. from Mexico. Construction soared as increased border security, forcing traffickers to go underground. In the last four years, the construction of illegal tunnels increased by 80%, according to a federal report 2012.

The tunnels are mainly used to smuggle marijuana into the U.S., but Homeland Security officials say the passages U.S. are "a significant security threat" because they could easily also be used to smuggle weapons or troops across the border. Many located in Arizona and California, are rudimentary holes, or use existing drainage systems across the border.

The most sophisticated tunnels tend to sprout in Otay Mesa, a bustling border town that is part of San Diego, where clay in the soil allows longer and deeper passages and the constant presence of port shipments helps conceal wineries outputs. The tunnels are often more than 300 meters long, reinforced concrete and wood, equipped with ventilation systems, telephones, lighting and, in one case, an electric rail system capable of propelling tons of marijuana below the border about 30 kilometers per hour.

The tunnels usually start in a house in Mexico, running under the border fence and often found to be in a warehouse district that is used to store legal border trade products. Agents usually discover them when they detect abnormal activity in the warehouses on the U.S. side, as night shifts, or parked rigs that seem to never move.

In 2009, authorities discovered a tunnel under the false floor of a bathroom built on a hydraulic lift to descend 27 meters underground. "It was an engineering marvel," said Jerry Conlin, a Border Patrol agent in the U.S., who said the tunnel had ventilation, lighting and telephone. After a tunnel is discovered, federal agents fill it with high-strength concrete to seal said.

Federal agents believe that architects come from Durango, a mining state in northern Mexico and there is a small group of trusted engineers, who are highly valued and protected by drug traffickers who hire them, they've been responsible for designing and overseeing the construction of tunnels.

Authorities say they only know of an architect who was arrested and sentenced in U.S.: Felipe de Jesus Corona-Verbera, who built one of the first sophisticated tunnels that was discovered at the border, a passage of 60 meters from Agua Prieta, north of Mexico to Arizona, and was used to transport cocaine. It was found in 1990 and Corona-Verbera eluded authorities for more than a decade until he was arrested in 2003. Three years later he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, according to federal records, and is currently being held near Tucson, Arizona.

"If you have an engineer who is building tunnels very good, protect that asset," said Tim Durst, assistant special agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who leads a team focused on tunnels. "It's the most important thing."

In the past two years, San Diego agents seized 100 tonnes of marijuana with an estimated value of $ 60 million, several tunnels. During this period, the authorities have obtained 20 convictions related to the tunnels on the border of San Diego, said Sherri Walker Hobson, the assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California.

Prosecutors in San Diego are asking the Mexican government to extradite Jose Sanchez Villalobos, after a jury charged him with 13 counts of drug trafficking and the alleged financing of the construction of two of the longest tunnels in the border, including one called the tunnel Marconi. Prosecutors say Sanchez Villalobos was a member of the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel.His lawyer, Guadalupe Valencia said that Sanchez Villalobos denies the charges and is fighting extradition.

Despite successful raids, investigators in this city and in Mexico have not been able to find engineers. Investigators believe they know the identity of one of them, Durst says, "but we have come up against several obstacles in locating that person."

Authorities are perplexed about how engineers manage to be so precise in the construction of a tunnel to come out at exactly the right point in the U.S. Durst believes that use compasses to help guide their work, but are very intrigued how they manage without a global positioning device, it would not work underground.