In a joint operation between Sonoran authorities and personnel from the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) a drug tunnel was discovered that was intended to cross the border and connect San Luis Río Colorado with Arizona, but local authorities reported that it was not yet finished.
In a statement issued by the Public Security Secretariat (SSP) of Sonora, it was indicated that authorities from both countries were reviewing the “critical points” of the border, often used for drug and human trafficking.
With the help of drones, authorities identified an area where the earth had been removed, identifying that it was a tunnel that connected both states below the border wall.
It is worth remembering that this type of construction is not new and that it is linked to one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is not only credited with the idea of smuggling drugs into the United States through tunnels on the borders of Sonora and Baja California; he also managed to escape from a maximum security prison (El Altiplano, in Edomex) through a 1.5 kilometer long tunnel.
According to information from the CBP, between 2017 and 2021 they managed to destroy 40 tunnels that connected Arizona with Sonora; in addition, last May another similar construction was identified in the same area, according to information contained in newspaper records.
The drug tunnels of Chapo Guzmán
In 1990, the United States authorities seized about a ton of cocaine in Phoenix, Arizona; After the investigation, it was revealed that the drugs had crossed the border through a 180-meter-long tunnel that connected the cities of Agua Prieta (Sonora) with Douglas, Arizona. Because of the location, El Chapo Guzmán was linked to the drug tunnel and the shipment of the drugs.
Until the last arrest of El Chapo Guzmán in January 2016, the news network Univisión revealed that the authorities had dismantled 194 tunnels used by the Mexican drug lord; not all of them related to the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, but the majority were located in the cities used by the capo to transport the narcotics.
However, the Sinaloa capo, sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States, used other methods to send cocaine and marijuana across the border; One of his tactics included the company La Comadre, which he used to hide the narcotics in cans of chili, according to an investigation carried out by journalist José Luis Montenegro in his book Chapitos: criminal radiography of the heirs of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Source: infobae
