Discovery of Cross Border Drug Tunnel in Mexico May Be Just the First

U.S. BORDER July 1993

The discovery this summer of a tunnel from Tijuana international airport to the outskirts of San Diego designed to smuggle drugs may portend a trend, according to U.S. drug enforcement officials (Reuter, "Costly Drug Tunnel Found Under U.S.-Mexican Border," Washington Post, 6/4/93, A3). The nearly completed 1,450 passage was unearthed by police seeking the killers of Roman Catholic cardinal Juan Posadas, who died in a shoot out at Guadalajara airport this May.

Customs agent Jack Kelley in San Diego said the tunnel showed that tougher U.S.-Mexican anti-drug efforts are forcing smugglers to resort to more costly and elaborate methods. It is estimated that $1.5 million was invested in digging the tunnel. A much shorter tunnel was discovered on the Mexican-Arizona border in 1990. An estimated 70 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply enters through Mexico.