Free Republic

U.S. Border Patrol agents have found a suspected drug tunnel with lighting and a rail-car system that connected to a home across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack said agents patrolling west of the San Ysidro port of entry Tuesday morning found a sinkhole close to the U.S. border fence that opened up into the tunnel. …

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Tis the season for finding cross-border drug tunnels. The latest secret passage - equipped with a hydraulic lift, electric rail cars, wooden staircase and end-to-end wood floors - was discovered Tuesday on the U.S.-Mexico border, highlighting an emerging seasonal trend. For three years, authorities have found the most sophisticated tunnels shortly before the winter holidays in what officials speculate is an attempt by drug smugglers to take advantage of Mexico's fall marijuana harvest. The discovery of the 600-yard tunnel resulted in seizures of 32 tons of marijuana, one of the largest pot busts in U.S. history,...

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- U.S. authorities said they discovered a major cross-border tunnel Tuesday, the latest in a spate of secret passages found to smuggle drugs from Mexico. "It is clearly the most sophisticated tunnel we have ever found," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. She did not provide details. The tunnel links warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, authorities said. Mexican soldiers found the entrance on the south side of the border at a Tijuana warehouse after the U.S. opening was discovered. A photo released by U.S. authorities shows a hydraulic...

Authorities in Nogales, Ariz., this week shut down a 90-foot-long smuggling tunnel spanning the U.S.-Mexican border and arrested two men and a boy. "Anytime you see electricity, ventilation and shoring, it's pretty sophisticated," said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Agents were conducting surveillance along the border Tuesday when they spotted a truck with Arizona license plates and noticed suspicious activity around it, according to an ICE press release. Agents followed the truck as it left, pulled it over and discovered 2,621 pounds of marijuana inside. ... The tunnel is about three feet wide and three...

WASHINGTON Federal drug agents and the Coast Guard arrested Mexican drug lord Javier Arellano-Felix, a leader of a violent gang responsible for digging elaborate tunnels to smuggle drugs under the U.S. border, a Justice Department official said Wednesday. The official said the Arellano-Felix, 37, was apprehended off the Southern California coast. He is wanted in both the United States and Mexico for his role as a leader in the violent and sophisticated Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix gang, which includes seven brothers and four sisters from the Arellano family. The official requested anonymity because he spoke before the official announcement of the arrest....