SECOND RAIL-EQUIPPED DRUG TUNNEL FOUND AT MEXICAN BORDER

LOS ANGELES -- Federal investigators discovered a sophisticated
cross-border tunnel Thursday in an industrial part of San Diego. The
half-mile tunnel was the second found this month equipped with rail
tracks and carts to funnel drugs to and from Tijuana, Mexico.

After getting a tip about drug activity at a warehouse in Otay Mesa, a
thicket of warehouses and truck repair shops that hugs the Mexican
border, agents with the San Diego Tunnel Task Force arrested three men
there and discovered the tunnel. United States and Mexican authorities
have seized more than 20 tons of marijuana since Thursday.

Mexican military investigators later detained five men in Tijuana and
uncovered an entrance to the tunnel beneath the kitchen floor of a
house.

Mike Unzueta, who oversees investigations for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in San Diego, said there were two entrances on the United
States side, both in warehouses in the Otay Mesa area. Investigators
believe the tunnel was operated by the Sinaloa cartel, one of the five
largest drug cartels operating in Mexico. "This is fairly
sophisticated construction," Mr. Unzueta said. "There is a lighting
system throughout, a ventilation system."

The walls were reinforced with wood and cinder blocks, and had
electrical outlets to charge jackhammers used to cut a path 60 to 90
feet underground.

On Nov. 2, federal agents found about 32 tons of marijuana and another
tunnel less than a block from this one. The earlier tunnel had similar
construction and connected two warehouses on either side of the border.

The authorities have found more than 75 tunnels along the border in
the last four years. Most are rudimentary dirt passages, closer to the
surface. Border Patrol agents discover many of the smaller tunnels
when the ground beneath their vehicles caves in as they drive the dirt
stretches along the border in California, Arizona and Texas, Mr.
Unzueta said.

Otay Mesa, he said, has stronger ground, full of clay and decomposing
granite. "You could just about build a tunnel without any
reinforcement and it will stay," he said.

The area is a target of the cartels because of its ready commercial
infrastructure.

"There are literally semi trucks and warehouses everywhere you look,"
Mr. Unzueta said, "and all the businesses that support that: gas
stations, truck service centers. It's an infrastructure that exists on
both sides of the border."