Posted on 01/30/2006 1:31:06 PM PST by ncountylee
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A U.S. government effort to find drug-smuggling tunnels underneath the Mexican border with ground-penetrating radar and other high-tech gear has had little success.
Human intelligence has proven to be the most effective method of finding the passageways. A case in point: The longest tunnel ever found along the border was discovered last week after a tip.
The Homeland Security Department said Monday that a Mexican man, Carlos Cardenas Calvillo, was arrested in connection with the 2,400-foot tunnel, which went as deep as 90 feet and was about 5 feet in height and 5 feet wide. He was to be arraigned in federal court on charges of conspiracy to import more than a ton of marijuana.
"The problem is the technology picks up some kind of anomaly or variation of soil," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We go in with big backhoes and bulldozers, we spend all day doing it, and all we hit is rock or water tables."
That was what happened earlier this month when high-tech gear alerted authorities to a possible tunnel near Boulevard, a hamlet about 60 miles east of San Diego along the Mexican border. A full day of digging turned up nothing
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Just doing the tunneling that Americans don't want to do. :)
So much for technology finding trapped miners--it doesn't exist.
Well that's the good news. As more tunnels get shut down, the harder it would be for the smugglers to dig new ones - provided we get moving on this.
This reminds me, our fence will need a moat. 40' deep should do. Hey how about a new canal running along the border from Brownsville to San Diego?
so, is finding the water table good or bad ?
Well, if they find enough of them along the border, they should be able to have all of them mapped, along with all other preexisting geological anomalies. Then when something new crops up, they'll know it's a tunnel, right?
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