B.C. TRIO HAD TUNNEL VISION, BUT POLICE SAW THROUGH IT

ALDERGROVE, B.C. -- For eight months, police say, the three men
toiled day and night, clawing away in a small space with shovels,
hauling off mountains of dirt, and finally emerged from their
110-metre tunnel with bags of dope.

But instead of payday, the Surrey, B.C., men came face to face with
agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who had quietly
been monitoring the tunnellers' progress for months.

Police say the trio had just completed the longest illegal drug
tunnel ever dug by hand in North America, and they did it to cross a
road only a few hundred metres away from the Aldergrove-Lynden border crossing.

Their excavation began in February inside a Quonset hut beside an
abandoned house in Aldergrove, and surfaced two days ago through a
crawl space beneath the living-room floor of an empty house in Lynden, Wash.

"They were smart enough to dig the tunnel, but they weren't smart
enough not to get caught," U.S. Attorney John McKay said at a press
conference yesterday.

He said three Canadians, Francis Raj, 30, Timothy Woo, 34, and
Johnathan Valenzuela, 27, were arrested and charged with importing
and distributing marijuana, as well as conspiracy to commit both
crimes, and were being detained in Seattle.

The joint U.S. and Canadian investigation began in October, 2003,
when an informant told a Canadian Border Services Agency investigator
that something was being built underground.

"Investigators monitored activity on both sides of the border and
confirmed that plans were under way to create such a tunnel," said
Inspector Pat Fogarty, leader of the Canadian investigation.

U.S. and Canadian law-enforcement agents said that they used cameras
and listening devices to monitor the tunnelling, and observed three
men as they carried 42 kilograms of marijuana in large bags beneath the border.

Insp. Fogarty said the tunnel was approximately three metres deep,
with an entrance nearly one square metre.

"It was constructed using various digging equipment including
shovels, a winch and carting system to remove the dirt," Insp. Fogarty said.

"The tunnel walls are reinforced with concrete, [reinforced steel],
and about 1,000 pieces of two-by-six-inch wood supports spaced out
two inches apart. It's not very wide, and a person going through it
would have to crouch down or even crawl to get through."

He said that the tunnel had not compromised the stability of the road
above it, and has been sealed and secured.

Julie Luke has lived on Zero Avenue in Aldergrove for 22 years, and
said that she had no clue what was going on right next door.

"Francis bought place next door two years ago," Ms. Luke said. "And
that was when he first came over here to introduce himself."

She said that Mr. Raj never lived in the house, but mowed the lawn
regularly, and could be heard working inside the Quonset hut.

"There was banging coming from his place all the time," Ms. Luke
said. "But I never saw piles of dirt anywhere, just his white
four-wheel-drive truck in his driveway."

Across the street, at the other end of the tunnel on East Boundary
Road in Lynden, no one was home.

"Another young man bought that house two years ago, but I don't know
much about him," Ms. Luke said. "I used to know the Americans on the
other side of the street, but since 9/11 you can't just walk across
the border here."

She said that border patrols go up and down the street in cars every
15 minutes and the occasional helicopter passes.

The Aldergrove-Lynden tunnel seizure is one of 34 cross-border
tunnels discovered in the United States, Drug Enforcement
Administration officials said Thursday.