DEA READIES PLANS TO ENTOMB TUNNEL UNDER DIRT, CONCRETE

VANCOUVER -- A tunnel allegedly built to smuggle marijuana from Canada to
the United States will be destroyed next week, an official with the Drug
Enforcement Administration said Friday.

Rodney Benson, special agent in charge of the Seattle Field Division of the
DEA, also said more arrests are imminent in the case.

The two-day project to fill in the tunnel will begin on Thursday. A crew
will cut through the roadway above the tunnel near the Lynden, Wash., border
before steel and concrete barriers are inserted and the tunnel is filled in
with dirt and gravel, Benson said.

A liquid foam cement that hardens like rock will then be put into the tunnel
to close it off permanently, he said.

The first covert tunnel ever discovered between Canada and the U.S. was shut
down last month by police from both sides of the border after authorities
monitored its construction, watching lumber going in and soil coming out.

The 110-metre tunnel stretched from a metal hut in Langley to a point
underneath the living room of a house in Lynden, where police had installed
cameras and microphones.

Three men from Surrey were charged in Washington state with conspiracy to
distribute and import marijuana.

The structure was so sophisticated that it was equipped with electricity,
ventilation and sump pumps to ensure water didn't gather. The builders had
also installed a small cart to allow them to move freight or people from one
end to the other.

Benson said 1,000 pieces of lumber were used to build the tunnel.

"So a lot of that wood will have to be taken out," he added.

"Criminal organizations spent months to construct it, spent ... probably a
million dollars in constructing it, and it's going to be shut down in a way
that it will never be used again."

The tunnel has been under 24-hour surveillance by the Customs and Border
Protection Service since it was seized.

Benson said officials are continuing their investigation.