Mexico-US secret drug tunnel
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) photograph released on March 1, 2012 shows an underground drug smuggling tunnel from Mexico into Nogales, Arizona. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the 110-foot long tunnel measured two feet wide by two feet tall, and was shored up with timber. The passageway ran about five feet below ground from the front year yard of a house in Nogales, Mexico. While securing it, agents also found 550 pounds of marijuana inside in bundles. Reuters

US Customs and Border Patrol agents have found a secret tunnel on the US-Mexico border. Located near the town of Nogales on the Mexican side of the border, the tunnel stretched forty meters into American territory. In a statement released by the US Border Patrol, American authorities revealed that the tunel was discovered on Wednesday after traces of dirt were found in a drain near the international crossing point Dennis DeConcini which divides the towns of Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora.

The tunnel, which has now been dismantled aftera binational inspection from authorities on boths sides of the border, was sitll under construction and had no exit on the American side, where it would have eventually reached completion. The discovery was made by the US Border Patrol and the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) as well as the Mexican federal police. BEST is multiagency group which forms part of the Department of Homeland Security and works to identify and eliminate criminal groups which seek to exploit vulnerabilities along US borders.

BEST will be using small robots to explore and ultimately dismantle the tunnel. "With ever greater border security above ground, criminal orgnaizations in Mexico have been relying more and more on tunnels for the transporting of drugs, weapons, people and other illegal materials," stated BEST Authorities. "Through the destruction of these tunnels, Border Patrol contines to efficiently dismantle and disrupt transnational criminal orgnizations and their ilegal activities. This new robot technology will help us in this mission."

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