SPOKANE COUPLE IDENTIFIED AS OWNERS OF TUNNEL HOUSE

SPOKANE, Wash. - The house at the U.S. end of a 110-metre
drug-smuggling tunnel to British Columbia belongs to a Spokane-area
couple, the Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Saturday.

Three Surrey men were arrested in connection with the case. The
tunnel, reinforced with wooden supports and rebar, stretched from a
metal hut in Langley to a point underneath the living room of a house
in Lynden, Wash.

The house is owned by Raman and Kusum Patel, the Whatcom County
Assessor's website said. The Spokane County Assessor's website
indicates the same couple bought a home in the Mead area of Spokane
County in July 2003.

Neighbours told the newspaper the Patels live at the Mead home. There
was no immediate response to a message left on a telephone-answering
machine at the only residential listing for Patel in the area.

A U.S. federal search warrant was served at the Mead house Thursday,
spokesman Jeff Eig with the Seattle bureau of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration told the newspaper.

Charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle with conspiracy to
distribute marijuana and conspiracy to import marijuana were Francis
Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34 and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, all of
Surrey.