Feds investigating smuggling tunnel near San Luis

Federal officials investigating a tunnel found near the San Luis port of entry say it was possibly still under construction.

"It appears that there is no terminus on the United States side that we’ve discovered. We're still investigating but that would indicate that the tunnel has yet to be used," said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Vinny Picard.

This is the first underground tunnel of its kind found in the Yuma area, though there have been others in areas including San Diego and Calexico, Calif.

Picard said these tunnels are commonly used to smuggle humans or drugs.

ICE measured the one near San Luis to be 3 feet by 3 feet in size, which Picard said indicated it was designed as a passage for drugs. However, he said the small space could still be used for some human trafficking.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will start work to fill in the tunnel on Friday, according to Albert Bosco, CBP spokesman in the Yuma sector.

"They’ll remove any tunnel components from the site and fill it in with concrete and cover it with dirt," Bosco said.

U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Yuma sector found the tunnel Wednesday approximately one mile east of the San Luis port of entry, at 6th Avenue and Urtuzuastegui Street, Border Patrol agent Eric Anderson told The Sun Wednesday.

Anderson said a Border Patrol maintenance man was using a watering truck to pack down the road for dust control around noon Monday when his truck fell about three feet into what was believed at the time to be a sinkhole.

He said agents went to the scene around 3 p.m. Monday to help pull the truck out. Agents continued to investigate and found lumber Wednesday, indicating to them it was a tunnel.

The tunnel was started on the Mexican side of the border in a private home at Carlos G. Calles St. 1008, San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., according to Cecilia Loera Ochoa, spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office there,

She said the tunnel was 250 feet long - with 142 feet of it in Mexico and the remainder in the U.S.

Loera Ochoa said Mexican authorities blocked off the house at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday after they were alerted about the tunnel by Border Patrol.

"We’ve had outstanding cooperation with the Mexican government on this. They took enforcement action on the house, where the Mexican terminus was," Picard said.

Bosco said the tunnel was a sign of desperation among smugglers trying to circumvent increased enforcement and the fence under construction along the border.

He added that the soil in this area does not easily support tunnels, which may be why none has been found here before. He said the water table in the soil here is high, which means it is mostly composed of sand.

"It's like digging a hole in your backyard. You can't dig a nice, even hole because it keeps filling in on itself," Bosco said.