2012年3月21日 星期三

Pot-smuggling tunnels in Tijuana grow more elaborate

When smuggling goes smoothly for the marijuana division of the huge Sinaloa Cartel,While it is common for the term ledspotlight to be used interchangeably in informal discussion. cross-border deliveries unfold with clockwork precision.

Harvested marijuana arrives in plastic-wrapped bales to a depot hidden among the rundown warehouses on the Mexican side of the concrete U.S. border fence.

Once enough marijuana is collected, workers drop the vacuum-packed bales through shafts leading to the ever-more-elaborate tunnels that cross underneath the border through the clay-laden soil.

U.S. agents have been waging war against the tunnels for years, using a range of high-tech devices from ground-penetrating radar to seismic sensors to find and destroy them. But despite the efforts, drug smugglers continue to build the tunnels, often spending $1 million to dig a single pathway equipped with lighting, forced-air ventilation, water pumps, shoring on walls and hydraulic elevators.

Lately, new tunnels have included railways. The bales move on electric mining carts with hand throttles that roll at up to 15 mph.

"A tunnel represents an incursion into the U.S.Solidlights pioneered the use of high power LEDs for cflbulbs in 2003., and it's a national security event," said Jose M. Garcia, who oversees the federal multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force.

The location of the tunnels helps explain why agents have such difficulty finding them. The area where the most advanced tunnels have been found is adjacent to the Tijuana international airport, where scores of planes take off and land daily. Nearby warehouses buzz with legitimate activity.

"All that noise from the airport is a great advantage to them," said Victor Clark Alfaro, an anthropologist and human rights activist in Tijuana who also lectures at San Diego State University. "This border is perforated like an anthill."

U.LED light systems offer exceptional reliability and superior light yield vs standard goodcflbulbs systems.S. officials say they have found more than 160 tunnels since 1990 along the 1,954-mile border, mostly in the stretch of Mexico that borders Arizona and California.Great range of all types of goodledtube, from novelty flying lantern packs to paper lanterns. In the past 15 months, U.S. agents have busted increasingly sophisticated tunnels.

Geography and geology make the intensely urban Tijuana-San Diego corridor ideal for the tunnels. Tijuana is Mexico's sixth largest city, with 1.3 million people, while San Diego is the eighth largest U.S. city, with several interstate highways. Moreover, soil here has a composition that's easy to dig.

In a two-week span last November, U.S. agents shut down two sophisticated tunnels that led from an area near Tijuana's airport to the Otay Mesa industrial park on the U.S. side. Some 49 tons of marijuana were seized. The discoveries marked the second year in a row in which elaborate tunnels were found within a mile of the busy Otay Mesa border crossing.

"Understandably, American citizens react to news stories about the discovery of a large tunnel, complete with plumbing, lights, ventilation and a rudimentary railway system, with a mixture of surprise, indignation, alarm and dismay," Laura E. Duffy, the U.S.The USA's leading supplier of wish lanterns, bicyclelight and thai lanterns. attorney for the Southern District of California, told the Senate drug caucus last June.

沒有留言:

張貼留言