On Wednesday, two more drug-smuggling tunnels were discovered along the San Diego-Mexico border and a 73-year-old Chula Vista woman was arrested for overseeing the logistics of the operation.
According to the federal complaint against Glennys Rodriguez of Chula Vista, she is the only person facing charges. However, others were named in the complaint, including one man who had been previously apprehended for constructing border crossing tunnels.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in San Diego said the tunnels, which extended hundreds of yards linking Tijuana, Mexico with an Otay Mesa industrial park, were elaborate and sophisticated systems embodying a multi-tiered electric rail system and ventilation equipment.
According to ICE, the tunnels were the sixth and seventh found in the area in less than four years. The tunnels were found by a U.S. task force working with Mexican law enforcement counterparts. Finding the tunnels will eliminate a “multi-million dollar drug smuggling venture” and will render all their efforts “nothing more than a colossal waste of money on the part of the drug cartels,” according to William Sherman, special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
At this point, it is unclear how much, if any, drugs were transported through the tunnels, according to authorities. U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy doesn’t think that it is a smart business plan for the cartels to go underground with their drug smuggling: “Here we are again, foiling cartel plans to sneak millions of dollars of illegal drugs through secret passageways that cost millions of dollars to build.”
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