TUNNEL FOUND ON MEXICAN BORDER

LOS ANGELES -- U.S. and Mexican authorities have discovered an
elaborate tunnel that stretches the length of eight football fields
connecting Mexico and the United States and was apparently used for
drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday.

The tunnel, unearthed Wednesday, runs from a warehouse in Tijuana and
surfaces in the United States under an abandoned warehouse west of
the Otay Mesa port of entry. Mexican authorities announced that they
had seized about two tons of marijuana on the Mexican end, and
experts said the passageway bore all the hallmarks of an operation by
a major drug cartel.

"This is a very, very sophisticated tunnel," Michael Unzueta, special
agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San
Diego, said in a telephone interview. "Whether they are designed to
smuggle drugs, people, weapons or other contraband, these tunnels
pose a threat to our nation's security."

Unzueta said investigators were tipped off to the existence of the
tunnel on the Mexican side and passed the information to Mexican law
enforcement, which obtained a search warrant for the warehouse in
Tijuana on Wednesday. Mexican authorities allowed reporters into the
warehouse that night; they reported that they saw about 300 bundles
of marijuana stacked more than five feet high.

Unzueta described the shaft as technically advanced, with
electricity, a ventilation system, pumps to remove groundwater,
cement flooring for traction in steep areas, and wood roofing to
bolster the walls and ceiling. It had a clearance, he said, of nearly
six feet and was about five feet wide.

At 2,400 feet, the tunnel is the longest and most sophisticated of
the 21 underground passageways linking the United States and Mexico
that have been discovered since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when
investigations and enforcement were beefed up in the region. Unzueta
said most of the tunnels have been located in the San Diego area
because the composite soil of that region is ideal for such work.
From 1990 to 2001, 15 tunnels were unearthed.

Unzueta said that a year ago, agents from his agency, the Drug
Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection's
Border Patrol unit formed the San Diego Tunnel Task Force, with the
aim of unearthing the networks.

Federal agents have concluded that drug traffickers and smugglers of
illegal immigrants have been heading underground to escape tighter
enforcement along the border. Customs officials announced this week
that drug seizures at California border crossings rose 24 percent in
the past fiscal year. More than 127 tons of drugs were seized, the
vast majority of that marijuana, in the year ending Sept. 30.

Since Jan. 9, authorities in the region have uncovered three other
tunnels. Those were far from sophisticated -- the kind that agents
call "gopher holes," being essentially shallow tubes connecting
Mexico and the United States. In one discovery of a 30-foot-long
tunnel with an opening of two feet square, federal agents found
prospective illegal immigrants were still inside, although they
succeeded in turning around and inching back into Mexico.

Law enforcement cooperation between the United States and Mexico has
not always been good. Earlier this week, Texas state police were
stopped along the border from seizing three sport-utility vehicles by
men in military-style uniforms, who were armed with automatic weapons
and driving a Humvee. The SUVs were apparently carrying marijuana.

Texas law enforcement officials speculated that the men were Mexican
soldiers. On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza issued a statement
asking the Mexican government to "fully investigate" the border
incident. Mexico's top diplomat, Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto
Derbez, countered Thursday that the men could just as easily have
been U.S. troops.