Tunnels Pose Trouble from Mexico to Middle East
May 3, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
By 2014 most of the border will be home to sensor-equipped towers that are linked to a central communications network. But while proponents argue that the system will help stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drugs and arms coming over the border, most experts admit it will do little to guard against people making their way under it.
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Since 2001, more than 100 tunnels have been discovered by U.S. law enforcement, compared with just 15 in the 1990s, and the pace is accelerating. Most of those have been uncovered through human intelligence, since there are no currently available technical means to reliably detect tunnels.
The Department of Homeland Security started spending research money on detection technologies two years ago. But even the most promising ones — primarily adapted from mining and petroleum exploration industries — are several years from proving reliable. “We see this as one of those frontier threat areas that have to be mitigated but it is a very, very difficult problem area,” says Rick Miller, a leading expert at the Kansas Geological Survey.
Most of the tunnels are pretty crude, what law enforcement call gopher holes. Typically just a few feet down and only long enough to get under a fence or two, they can be dug with a pick axe and shovel in the span of just a few nights.
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Far more worrisome are the increasingly sophisticated tunnels that display mining engineering expertise and significant investments of money. A tunnel discovered in 2006 believed to have been financed by the Tijuana Cartel led by the family of Ramon Arellano Felix was around 2,400 feet long and about nine stories deep. It had concrete floors in certain sections, ventilation, electricity and a water drainage system. It went from an industrial area of Tijuana across the border to a warehouse in Otay Mesa, the main commercial port of entry near San Diego.
