Free Republic

If a new U.S. administration blocks the flow of remittances — the estimated $20 billion that Mexicans working in the U.S. send home each year — then joint efforts to stop money laundering and other illicit forms of finance will be dealt a dangerous setback, a senior Mexican official warned Thursday. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has vowed, if elected, to make Mexico pay to build a wall along the entire Southwest border, even if it means impounding remittance payments. Fernando Aportela, Mexico’s deputy secretary for finance, said any attempt to seize remittances would force Mexicans to hide...

U.S. federal agents have uncovered two drug-smuggling tunnels underneath the U.S.-Mexico border, both surfacing in San Diego-area warehouses and equipped with rail systems for moving contraband, officials said on Friday. The discovery led to the arrest of a 73-year-old woman accused of running one of the warehouses connected to a drug smuggling operation, according to a joint news release by four federal agencies.

A tunnel designed to smuggle drugs from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego is equipped with electricity, ventilation and a rail system, U.S. authorities said Thursday, making it one of the more sophisticated secret passages discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border. Authorities seized more than 8 tons of marijuana and 325 pounds of cocaine in connection with the discovery, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Three suspects were in U.S. custody. The tunnel links warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial area. The area is filled with nondescript warehouses, making it easier to conceal trucks being loaded with drugs. …