Air-conditioned drug tunnel found on Mexico-US border

[OhioChick]

Source: Times of India

3 Sep 2008, 0702 hrs IST,AFP

MEXICO CITY: Mexican police discovered an air-conditioned drug-smuggling tunnel less than 60 meters (65 yards) from the US border in northwest Mexico, state police said.

The 140-meter-long (150-yard), 1.3-meter-wide and five-meter-deep tunnel included an electric rail for container transport, ventilation and lights as well as air-conditioning, said Juan Miguel Guillen, director of police in northern Baja California state.
State officers arrested eight suspects after discovering the tunnel under a house during a patrol in the town of Mexicali, across the border from Calexico in the United States, Guillen said.

"The detainees confessed that they were looking after the building where a drug tunnel was being built," he said.

Agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were carrying out excavations across the border to find the tunnel's exit point, he added.


Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Air-conditioned_drug_tunnel_found_on_Mexico-US_border/articleshow/3439071.cms

[silverojo]

1. Yeah, I know...they're just coming here to look for jobs

Illegal jobs, like drug running?

[madeline_con]

2. The truth hurts, and you're gonna catch hell for it. n/t

[silverojo]

4. Since when did that ever stop me from speaking truth?

:evilgrin:

[Zhade]

8. If drugs were legalized, this wouldn't be an issue.

NT!

[WriteDown]

22. impossible

while I support some drugs being legalized, there are a host of popular drugs like meth which I can't support.

[AlphaCentauri]

9. how could those Mexicans steal our innocence?

we can't get back our innocence, why they make us consume drugs?

[heliarc]

15. And you're going to blame this all on Mexicans?

How about the alarming demand that this country creates... Like it or not the US wants, needs and uses drugs... the supply is going to come from somewhere. I'll bet that the "investors" in Humboldt County Bud farms and neighborhood meth labs aren't always Mexicans.

[pampango]

16. Well, maybe Columbians AND Mexicans. I believe that is the Bush version of the drug problem.

It is not our fault for creating a huge market for drugs, but the fault of Columbians for growing the stuff and, evidently, the Mexicans for helping to deliver it. :banghead:

[heliarc]

17. This is so ridiculous I don't even know where to start.

"It's not our fault for creating a huge market for drugs"

There are some primo growers in Northern California, and in the Carolinas... and the production of Meth and other drugs is largely home grown... to somehow paint the drug problem as a thing where the only dealers are Mexican and Colombian is absurd... jumping from there to claim that somehow the drug use in this country doesn't have anything to do with Americans wanting the stuff... that's just plain insane. One just has to look at the level of corruption and complicity to understand that the grey area is vast and there are public officials on both sides who are bought and sold if not actively propagating sales for intelligence purposes and personal profit. The buyers at dealing levels are American too, and if they find better product in another country, they'll buy it in a second... with no regard as to whether or not the supplier is Colombia or Mexico or Afghanistan.

ON EDIT... we're saying the same thing aren't we?... it's early in the morning here in California, and I think I mistook what you said as a "rehash" NPI of the Bush line of the argument... duh... Good Morning :hi:

[pampango]

19. Yeah, we're on the same page. I just don't like using the "sarcasm" thing.

Good morning from the east coast. I've been awake for a while and still don't make myself clear. :)

[kayell]

18. And why on all or most Mexicans? Presumably the % involved in the

drug trade is similar to the % of Americans involved in the drug trade.

[ChromeFoundry]

3. That's 910 cubic meters of dirt...

where do you put that much dirt and not raise any eyebrows to suspicious active?

[madeline_con]

5. In your pants legs. Then sprinkle it in the yard. n/t

[ChromeFoundry]

6. ROTFL...

with mighty deep pockets! luckily Shawshank's walls were only a few feet thick, or that would have been a really long movie!

:rofl:

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Actually, that method was used in reality, for maybe 140 cubic metres

in the real life escape on which the film "The Great Escape" was based:

Sand dispersal was effected by 'Penguins', prisoners filling long thin bags which were slipped inside their trousers and walking about the compound, losing the sand from the bottom of the bags. One penguin was careless and the ferrets spotted him trailing sand; they then knew a tunnel was in progress, but they did not pounce, wanting to find out where it originated.
...
'Dick' was abandoned when the area in which it was to have surfaced was suddenly cleared of trees and a new compound built there. However, the abortive short tunnel proved an ideal place for concealing the growing amount of false clothing and general contraband, as well as providing a workshop for the manufacturers. Later, when sand disposal fell well behind the digging, much of the surplus sand was shovelled down 'Dick'.

Eventually, even this proved insufficient and the X Committee faced major disposal problems. Eventually it dawned on them that there was a huge closed-off area under the seats of the Theatre. Some time before, the Germans had allowed this to be built, using tools and equipment supplied on parole. Such equipment was never used for other purposes, and the parole system was regarded as inviolate. But did this also include the results of the paroled equipment, i.e. the Theatre itself? The tools had been properly returned, after all ... internal "legal advice" was taken, and the SBO's decision was that the popular and very successful Theatre itself did not fall within the parole system. Seat 13 was therefore hinged and camouflaged, and the vast space beneath used for sand disposal.
...
Even a highly simplistic calculation shows that at the barest minimum, for Harry alone the prisoners had to dispose of a staggering ((336 + 28 + 30) x 4) = 1,536 cubic feet of sand. In practice, the actual figure was well over double this, as it does not include the sand excavated for either Tom or Dick or the amount of extra sand removed after roof falls, or the addition of haulage, air pumping and storage chambers. I estimate that for the Great Escape only, the prisoners disposed of a figure in the region of 140 cubic metres, 200 tons of sand, which works out to almost an entire large truck or lorry containerful. A lot of sand.

http://www.um.zagan.pl/luft3/tunnels.htm

[raccoon]

20. That's what they did in THE GREAT ESCAPE. nt

[Greyhound]

7. A construction site. If you dig the tunnel as you construct the house,

the removal of huge quantities of dirt would likely go unnoticed. We usually find one of these every couple years in AZ.

[ChazII]

12. Exactly.

News of any tunnel is not really a surprise.

[jmowreader]

13. You sell it as fill dirt

Good clean fill dirt is expensive and it's in demand. I don't know if you can bring fill dirt from Mexico into the United States, but Mexicans would buy it.

[DeltaLitProf]

10. Shades of Weeds

Did Nancy Botwin make a phone call?

[reorg]

14. Yes, she did in the very last episode one week ago!

Seems the series has its avid watchers and friends even in India!

[otohara]

24. Now Where's That Maternity Shop

LOL - Weeds must have a large Mexican drug cartel audience.

[Zuiderelle]

21. Would be funny if they just stumbled upon the set for "Weeds."

[CarlB]

23. I thought of the same thing!

Hey it's my first post!
I wonder also how many tunnels there are from Mexico to the US along the border...hundreds???

I like that "Weeds" show but Nancy's 17 year old son annoys the hell out of me.

[Zuiderelle]

25. Welcome to DU

:toast:

[Duer 157099]

26. LOL, my first thought too

I love that show!