Four charged in San Diego cocaine smuggling tunnel bust

Federal prosecutors have charged four suspects with trafficking more than one ton of cocaine for the Jalisco New Generation cartel using a fake retail store in San Diego as a front for a sophisticated tunnel that ran across the border to Tijuana, Mexico.

The defendants include two Mexican nationals and two Americans charged with conspiring to traffic drugs across the US-Mexico border. The suspects, who range in age from 18 to 32, all face sentences that could put them in prison for life. One of them, Gregorio Epifanio Hernandez Lopez, also faces the charge of “constructing, financing or using unauthorized tunnels”.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigation division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, first began surveilling a San Diego shop called “Buy 4 Less” located near the Otay Mesa border crossing in December of last year, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Monday. The agents suspected the shop of housing a subterranean tunnel.

There, the agents observed behavior that “did not appear to be consistent with a normal retail location”, the complaint reads. For example, the store didn’t seem to have customers. Several men entered and exited carrying suitcases, which often appeared empty. Sometimes they walked the suitcases across the border into Mexico.

On 29 May, the agents observed the suspects gather in three vehicles and saw them load up a truck with deep freezers they filled with packages.

San Diego county sheriffs conducted a traffic stop on the truck, where drug-sniffing dogs flagged the packages. Searches of the other two vehicles also yielded illicit drugs.

The officers confiscated a combined total of more than 2,250lbs of cocaine, according to the US attorney’s office for the southern district of California.

After the arrests, federal agents searched the San Diego Buy 4 Less, where they found a 55ft-deep tunnel “accessed using a sophisticated hydraulic lift”, according to the complaint. The tunnel extended more than 1,000ft to the US-Mexico border. Officials suspect that it continued for 800ft into the Mexican city of Tijuana.

The tunnel was about 4.5ft tall and operated using a rail and cart system. It was equipped with electricity and ventilation.

“This investigation and seizure represent a significant blow to the Jalisco New Generation cartel,” Kevin Murphy, acting special agent in charge for HSI San Diego, said in a press statement. “The discovery and dismantlement of this sophisticated cross-border tunnel, along with the seizure of more than a ton of cocaine, underscore the commitment and collaboration of Homeland Security Investigations and our Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) partners.”