Foreign
El Chapo’s drug-smuggling tunnel with underground railway from Mexico to US discovered (Photos)
A drug-smuggling tunnel nearly a mile long and equipped with its own railway and lift has been found at the US border with Mexico.
The 4,300ft passage, believed to have been built by El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel, is the longest known illicit underground route into the United States.
Complete with a ventilation system, high-voltage power cables and drainage, it is like the one used by the crime boss to escape jail in 2015.
On average 70ft below ground, it is almost 6ft high and 2ft wide.
It starts in an industrial area of the border city of Tijuana in Mexico, ending in a neighbourhood of San Diego, California, where its entrance was found covered by several hundred sandbags.
San Diego customs official Cardell Morant said: “The sophistication and length of this tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling.”
No arrest has been made.
El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquín Guzman, sent men to Germany to learn how to construct such underground passages to take millions of pounds’ worth of drugs into the US.
He was recaptured in 2016 and extradited to the US where he is serving a life term.
