Border Tunnel Discovered In Upscale Neighborhood

Mon Feb 28, 7:06 PM ET

Federal authorities from San Diego are investigating a border tunnel
discovered by Mexican authorities over the weekend, it was reported
Monday.

The tunnel connected a luxurious Mexicali residence to neighboring
Calexico in Imperial County, officials with the Mexican Federal
Attorney General's Office told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Inside the passageway, investigators discovered lighting and
ventilation equipment, a closed-circuit security system, hydraulic
machinery and various tools, Mexican authorities told the newspaper.

The finding led agents to believe that the tunnel was presumably used
for drug trafficking, Mexican authorities told the Union-Tribune.

A middle section of the tunnel was initially discovered in the United
States early Friday by U.S. Border Patrol agents checking for tunnels
in a residential area of Calexico, the newspaper reported. It is the
third tunnel found in Calexico in the past 15 months.

U.S. investigators searched for the tunnel's other end, Lauren Mack,
a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San
Diego told the Union-Tribune.

"This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we're still trying to
locate a possible exit to the U.S.," Mack told the newspaper.

On the Mexican side, the tunnel's entrance was found Saturday by
agents from Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation, the newspaper
reported. The entrance led from the bedroom of a house about 100
yards from the border in an upscale neighborhood known as Colonia
Nueva.