The Mexican Cartel's Hi-Tech Drug Tunnels

In the past five years, more than 100 drug tunnels between Mexico and the U.S. have been discovered. This is double the number found over the previous 15 years. Not only are they growing in number, but the tunnels are becoming much more sophisticated, including electric rail systems, hydraulic elevators, and secret entrances (one opened via a fake water tap). From the article: "When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico's most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed. The architect 'made me one f---ing cool tunnel' Joaquin 'Shorty' Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006. Built below a pool table in his lawyer's home, the tunnel was among the first of an increasingly sophisticated drug transport system used by Guzman's Sinaloa cartel. U.S. customs agents seized more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine which had allegedly been smuggled along the underground route."

Comments

Sounds like

[IrquiM]

somebody has been playing too much minecraft!

Re:Sounds like

[LWATCDR]

Funny I was thinking they watched too much Hogan's Heros.

Re:Sounds like

[Reverand Dave]

I really like how the Mole People are pinning this on the Mexicans. They are obviously more clever than I thought they were.

Ah, the war on drugs...

[clonehappy]

Remember, if we just increase the enforcement budget a little more and give up just a couple more of our basic rights, next time, we'll get them all for sure.

Re:Ah, the war on drugs...

[Ultra64]

The right to have control over your own body.

Re:Ah, the war on drugs...

[TheRealGrogan]

Let's see... drug testing as a requirement of employment, jack booted thugs throwing flash bang grenades terrorizing your family and killing your pets in the night from bad intel, drug interdiction techniques by the police that profile citizens and justify searches (and if you exercise your right to refuse, they will go over the situation with a fine tooth comb and find a reason). They make no apologies for these acts, in the name of the War on Drugs.

It may not have happened to you personally, but you should not accept that behaviour because it just as easily could.

Re:Ah, the war on drugs...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The right to keep your property unless there's due process: under "civill forfeiture" laws, police can and do seize cash from people without even filing charges and keep it for themselves.

In one notorious case, the first item in the "investigation" folder for a "drug" case was an appraisal of the person's house.

Yes, you can theoretically sue to get your property back. But there are also cases where the government has seized lawyer's fees after they've been paid, alleging that they were proceeds of criminal activity.

Re:Ah, the war on drugs...

[dkleinsc]

jack booted thugs throwing flash bang grenades terrorizing your family and killing your pets in the night from bad intel,

You can add to that list people who've been killed in their own homes by jack-booted police, because the police failed to announce themselves as police and the homeowner thought they were dealing with an armed robbery.

It's working

[AdrianKemp]

Clearly the war on drugs is very successful and victory is immanent.

Re:It's working

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the war on spelling.

Re:It's working

[jdgeorge]

If the leader of Mexico's most powerful drug cartel says "build me a tunnel", do you have to option of saying "no sir, that stuff is BAD for people"?

I know, it's a mistake to second-guess a jury verdict that I know almost nothing about, but superficially, 14 years in prison for choosing the "I'll stay alive, thank you," option seems like a lot. It's almost enough to make me wonder how effective the US drug enforcement laws and policies are.

Almost. But not quite. When it's time, I'll just head back to the voting booth and vote the way the straight-talking folks in my political party have told me is best. Thank you, "vote by party" option!

Re:It's working

[SydShamino]

You are assuming that he was willing to speak to the police at all after he was arrested. He may have been more fearful of his life then.

Unfortunately letting all underlings get off the hook with "They'd kill me if I didn't (x)!" would pretty much let all of them operate with impunity. Either they risk their life saying 'No' to the boss, they risk their life testifying against their boss when they get caught, or they take the prison sentence and be given a comfortable retirement by the mob when they are released (as their reward for serving a sentence in silence). This is assuming we won't give them all witness protection, which I guess we don't.

Re:It's working

[betterunixthanunix]

Clearly the war on drugs is very successful and victory is immanent.

Actually, I think it has been successful. How else would law enforcement have been able to convince people that they need automatic weapons, panopticon surveillance capabilities, and the right to seize private property and recycle the proceeds into their own budgets? The war on drugs has been vastly successful for all the prison companies and their investors, the firearms companies and their investors, surveillance equipment makers, and all those politicians who can always vote for more war-on-drugs funding as a way to get some cheap votes.

Re:It's working

[Anonymous Coward]

If people would, you know, just stop buying the damn stuff

But they won't. Any other fantasies you'd like to share?

Re:It's working

[b0bby]

But the problem is, how do you negotiate that wage? Your "or I won't do it" is much less convincing than his "or I'll kill you and your family".

Re:It's working

[mcgrew]

I love the way people blame the War on Drugs for all of the related problems.

It is responsible for all the related problems.

If people would, you know, just stop buying the damn stuff then the cartel's main income would dry up within a month

Yeah, and if the cat would stop puking on the floor I wouldn't have to clean it up. The same was said about alcohol in the 1920s, but guess what? Alcohol consumption doubled during prohibition. People have been intoxicating themselves since before they were people, and they're not going to stop just because some idiot writes a law against it.

The only way you're going to stop the violence, graft, corruption, and all the other ills caused by the drug laws is how we stopped it in 1933 -- legalize, tax, and regulate. You'd have far fewer heroin overdoses if purity was standardized.

If crack was legal and crackheads could buy the stuff for a dollat an ounce they wouldn't have to break into my house to support their habits. The drug laws are counterproductive and insane.

Re:It's working

[ColdWetDog]

I'm interested in seeing what my generation does though, there is almost nobody who doesn't know what the drugs are or their effects if not first handed, and the current generation's political influence fades off. But for us to replace those people is another couple of decades, so bear on I guess.

Nope, doesn't work like that. Hell, my generation - who grew up in the '70's did plenty of drugs. So did half the current lawmakers. More than half if you include alcohol as a 'drug' (it is but most people don't think so - denial is a wonderful thing). Funny thing, entrenched bureaucracies tend to remain entrenched bureaucracies. That and the weird Calvinist (the preacher, not the kid) mindset that is deeply embedded in this country's psych will keep the Boogy man alive for many a generation.

Re:It's working

[kilfarsnar]

I love the way people blame the War on Drugs for all of the related problems.

If people would, you know, just stop buying the damn stuff then the cartel's main income would dry up within a month, compared to the years to decades it'll take to convince the USA and other nations to legalise the stuff.

Well, that would be simple, now wouldn't it? I take it you have no vices? If we arbitrarily made your favorite food illegal, I assume you would just stop eating it and be happy with that outcome.

Really though, the reason the War on Drugs is blamed is that it is what causes the violence and crime. If drugs were legal, the black market for them would cease to exist, or at least become a shadow of its former self. It is that black market, and the risks it entails, that causes the crime, not the drugs themselves. Alcohol prohibition should have taught us this, but we are slow learners it seems.

If you want to take drugs that's fine, it's your choice. But it's also your choice to give the money to the people who commit these crimes. Are the thrills really worth that, or do the users just not give a damn what they're doing to the Mexican people so long as they have their fun?

Again, it is not the user who causes the crime and violence. It is the behavior necessitated by the illegality. The ones who do not care about the suffering of the Mexican people are the Mexican and US governments. For it is they who keep the laws in place that cause the violence, corruption and crime. If they would allow a free and fair market to exist, we wouldn't have the trouble we have.

Or, we could just try your solution. It seems much more simple, right? All we need to do is stop millions of people from doing something they like to do. How hard could it be?

Re:It's working

[Pionar]

The same was said about alcohol in the 1920s, but guess what? Alcohol consumption doubled during prohibition.

I'd like to see your source for that. Most studies say that consumption went down 20%-30%, but people drank more during each drinking session.

Re:It's working

[Archangel Michael]

The real solution is to legalize drugs, and tax them. Instead of spending all sorts of tax dollars on a losing proposition, the government could be making hand over fist in revenue AND take the narco gangs out of the picture. Mexico isn't a dangerous place because of drugs, it is a dangerous place because of the WAR on drugs.

But then again, that is pure fantasy of mine.

Re:It's working

[BronsCon]

It is responsible for all the related problems.

If crack was legal and crackheads could buy the stuff for a dollat an ounce they wouldn't have to break into my house to support their habits.

Hang on, how is a crack-head's addiction a consequence of the war on drugs?

I don't think that's what mcgrew was saying. I read that as "if it was legal, it would be cheaper. If it was cheaper, crackheads could beg just like the alcoholics do to support their habit, rather than breaking into my house to pay for the shit.".

Re:It's working

[swb]

"Essentially legal" and "actually legal" are very different.

The "legal" dispensaries have essentially the same supply issues as the street dealers and in some cases are competing with them for the same product and have to match street dealers for supplies. And the whole supply chain is still considered illegal.

In some cases, dispensaries may have a supply advantage (grow operation) but they also have to supply a high quality product that its more expensive to produce and also seem to provide a lot of high quality variety which, again, comses from a constrained and illicit supply.

In short, the dispensaries have high supply costs, just like street dealers, and they also have to supply high quality -- no brown Mexican crap.

Even if the dispensaries had lower supply costs, they are selling something else -- high quality and more importantly, the convenience and safety of a retail purchase.

If marijuana was ACTUALLY legal, the supply constraints go away -- what does it do to prices when farmers figure out how to grow high quality marijuana measured in the millions of bushels? When 'elite' brands can setup hydroponic grow operations in half-million square foot warehouses?

At this point retail competition will push the price down since there's little incentive or need to keep it at parity with street prices.

Re:It's working

[Attila Dimedici]

No, no the OP really meant "immanent".

Immanent: taking place within the mind of the subject and having no effect outside of it.

Re:It's working

[mcgrew]

Others have already pointed out the fallacy in your argument, so I'll zero in on this:

it will be very, very difficult to implement any sort of drug testing for employment. You really can't test for and ban employment because of a legal substance. For example, it is not legal to exclude someone from a job based on alchohol use, although you can fire them later for being drunk on the job.

That's a GOOD thing. If the bus driver isn't getting high on the job then there's no reason she shouldn't be driving a bus, any more than she should be fired for having a beer after work. Sorry, but your argument is just stupid.

Re:It's working

[bipbop]

I'd say your remark, "take the Breaking Bad approach and eliminate your competition", shows you to be clearly out of touch with reality, but you put in a smiley so I guess I can't. Frickin' smiley.

Re:It's working

[Overzeetop]

Most of your points are refuted by the result of the 18th amendment, and it's ultimate repeal via the 21st, in the US. The mob flourished after prohibition was repealed because we gave them the opportunity to make huge margins and create vast networks for their business, and once alcohol was removed they just moved to other things, fully funded. It's taken decades to reduce the grip of national organized crime.

Although there is a black market for tobacco and alcohol in the US, it is relatively small. The goal of any regulation and tax scheme is to make it difficult and expensive to obtain the "sin" items, without making it so difficult or expensive that the black market can make a profit off of it.

People in the trade will not magically become good, but it would be nice to start reducing the participation of new drug runners in their illicit endeavors rather than encouraging it through the promise of easy wealth.

As for health care, stop covering those diseases, and make it public that smoking, alcohol, an drug related ailments will not be reimbursed by taxpayer funded health care.

Re:It's working

[Hatta]

1. Legalizing drugs would lead to more drug users and addicts. A vast majority of crime is perpetrated by drug users (alcohol included)

This is unsupported by data. Wherever drug laws are liberalized drug use stays the same or decreases. Also, you're starting off on a disingenuous note. The vast majority of *everything* is perpetuated by drug users because the vast majority of humanity uses drugs.

2. Legalizing and then taxing drugs would lead to... wait for it... black market for untaxed or cheaper drugs ! (see cigarettes, alcohol, past attempts at legalizing drugs like opium)

We already have a black market for untaxed drugs. Legalizing would move at least some of that into the legal market. Looking at alcohol and tobacco, most of that traffic is legal. Wouldn't we benefit by doing the same with other drugs?

3. Legalizing and sanctioning drugs would lead to drugs with potentially limited potency due to Government control on the product which leads to.. black market

Which is why a sound drug policy wouldn't do that.

4. Drug dealers, runners, and general baddies are not going to suddenly because good citizens just because drugs can be purchased over the counter. The sell this shit for money, cause they want money... See #2 and #3 - they won't be out of a job anyways.

Organized crime will never disappear, but we can make it less profitable. You've offered no reason why we shouldn't.

5. Imagine our healthcare costs when we increase drug users drastically by making drugs acceptable and more available. We've already wasted lives, energy, and costs on smokers and heavy drinkers, why on Earth would we want to add more to this???

It's more likely that drug abusers will die more rapidly than the rest of the population. That will save us money on end of life health care. This is the case with tobacco today.

Legalizing these things just redefines the problem.

F. U. D.

Geek In Us All

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of thing speaks to the geek in me.

I mean, who else hasn't daydreamed about how we would do crime. Personally I'd never actually do anything of this nature... not only for reasons of morality and ethics.. but because I'm somewhat of a coward.

The thing that really gets me, is that we only hear about the guys who screw up.. and usually they screw up for dumb reasons. This would indicate to me that there are smarter people with even crazier schemes that have and will go undetected.

Re:Geek In Us All

[Requiem18th]

Like the guys at wall street.

Re:Geek In Us All

[vlm]

This kind of thing speaks to the geek in me.

I think of it just like building a model railroad, except its a model subway. And its about half scale instead of "N" or "HO" scale.

It would be fun to have your own subway, just for the sake of having your own subway.

And you get to build an electric car, well, a electric railroad car, without having to hear an infinity of people whining about how it only has a 300 mile range per charge and is therefore useless under all conditions.

If I ever have enough rural property to build a railroad, I'm going to way outdo the live steamers have a subway instead of an aboveground railroad.

We won!

[swillden]

With the discovery of this tunnel and the seizure of 2000 pounds of blow, the War on Drugs is clearly all but over.

Re:We won!

[clonehappy]

With the discovery of this tunnel and the seizure of 2000 pounds of blow, the War on Drugs is clearly all but over.

In other news, after the 250 pounds of blow was submitted into evidence, a flood of cheap blow somehow made its way onto the streets.

Obligatory

[Esion Modnar]

Hogan!!!

Re:Obligatory

[PPH]

I see nothing! I know nothing!

- Schultz

You'd think...

[TWX]

...that they could detect the activity required to build a tunnel.

I've never used marijuana, but at this point I don't see its' continued illegality being beneficial. Legalize it for those of-age, require standards for safety, and regulate it in a fashion similar to tobacco and alcohol, where one can't smoke it in public generally outside of the marijuana-equivalent of a beer garden similar to how tobacco consumption is prohibited in many places, where one can't drive after consuming it like a DUI, but where some businesses could get licenses to allow consumption on the property, and where people could consume it in their homes, provided that it doesn't impact their neighbors and if they're renting, that it's permitted by their landlord, similar to cigarettes. Allow employers to dismiss employees who show up high in the same fashion as dismissing employees who show up drunk.

Do that and you just gutted much of the business of the cartels, put many of the street gangs and lowlife dealers out of business, and would prevent it from being cut with dangerous chemicals.

Re:You'd think...

[dkleinsc]

...that they could detect the activity required to build a tunnel.

Which 'they' are we talking about here? If you're talking about the Mexican authorities, bear in mind that right now just about any officer that attempts to do something about the cartels is killed off fairly quickly.

Re:You'd think...

[TheCarp]

I am with you but...on some things I have to ask why?

Why should we assume that the exact same regulatory scheme is correct for pot as it is alcohol? In fact, there is ample evidence that they are wildly different, and should be treated as such.

Should prohibition on driving, for example, be based on actual evidence of risk? Sadly, only one study has ever been done that wasn't tained by bad process. I hope we can all agree that pulling non-smokers off the street, to experience it for their first time, for driving tests is not an accurate measurement of impairment. Secondly, I hope we can agree that looking at "marijuana related accidents" without any attempt to seperate out those on marijuana from those drunk who also smoked (which accounted for the majority of cases btw)...is also suboptimal.

Only one study (of which I am aware), by the UK Highway Safety Administration, saw these errors, commented on them, and did a better study, using actual smokers in actual impairment tests. What did they find? They found little to no impairment. In fact, they found that what little decreases in reaction time were measured were more than made up for by an abundance of caution on the part of drivers.

So... shouldn't we.... actually attempt to get some unbiased studies around the issue BEFORE we decide how to regulate it? Maybe, I don't know, take the ability to approve or disapprove studies away from the NIDA who has no interest in anything but proving their existing conclusion?

All about the drugs, guns and gasoline ....

[King_TJ]

As a former politician recently said, the truth with politics is that *everything* revolves around money generated by drugs, war and energy.

What a waste of time/money

[sl4shd0rk]

It's pointless trying to shut these operations down. The cartels don't care about loosing a tunnel or the drugs; they will just use/build another. The loss is written off as operating cost. I don't understand what drives the gov to continue this stuped cat-and-mouse game. I'd love to see the numbers for the US cost for one of these seizure operations though.

As always ... legalize it and tax it.

[khasim]

1. Move the production from off-shore to real USofA American farmers and small businesses. Then tax them.

2. Make sure that the products from #1 are "clean" and "certified". That means jobs for government workers filling in the paperwork and running the labs. And fees.

3. Distribution. Real Americans driving real trucks. (Tax their paychecks.)

4. Sales. More taxes.

One important thing would be to maintain the same price in every market in the nation so that there is no profit in smuggling it any more.

Another would be to limit the production by each grower. You do not want mega-corps involved. This is just to fight drug-related crime. Not to drive brand marketing. No "Joe Camel" ads. No ads at all. Plain black on white labels with the product name and the growers government ID and the health warning.

And dump some of the tax profits into FREE programs to get people to stop using the products.

Most of the people out there would be fine as recreational users. Just as with alcohol.

Re:As always ... legalize it and tax it.

[ColdWetDog]

Drug use is expensive - let's not kid ourselves. Look at health care expenditures for our favorite drugs in the US - alcohol and tobacco. Hell, those drugs have their very own federal bureau. But humans do things that are counterproductive to our health and safety. It isn't the government's business to keep us all safely cocooned and protected from ourselves - it's the government's responsibility to keep us safe from each other.

So, yes, regulation (and treatment programs for those folks that get in trouble from the drugs) is expensive but that's what money is for. Good luck getting that bit of enlightenment past the brimfire and damnation ethos that runs through vast tracks of this country.

Just like Slashdot's inability to figure out the Apple demographic, most of us can't quite figure out how fucking weird an enormous swath of the US really is when it comes to moral issues. I mean, Michelle Bachman? Really? She makes Sarah Palin look sane.

Ban Assault Shovels!

[niko9]

We should obviously BAN illegal assault shovels! No citizen needs a shovel that's painted black and has rubber grip with finger grooves! (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202562616/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053) Or one with a adjustable handle! (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202819477/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053) Just like a telescoping stock, these adjustable shovels only have one use: to build hi-tech drug tunnels!!

I say we force landscapers, contractors and other manual laborers to be fingerprinted, obtain a shovel license and be limited to buying one shovel a month. Who the hell needs more than one shovel a month! Plus, you must specify the make, length and blade material on your shovel application. And specify exactly show good cause for needing a shovel. Though, the licensing officials will never objectively define what "good cause" is.

Re:Why do they need tunnels?

[Anrego]

Someone (or many someones) probably are.

That's the interesting thing with this stuff. We only hear about the guys who get caught. We don't get to hear about the guys who run their operations successfully because success is pretty much defined by not getting caught.

Re:You just can't legalize ALL substances.

[mcgrew]

If some of the "harder" more addictive substances were legalized and made cheaper we would see a huge increase in abuse.

That's a fallacy. Alcohol use and abuse soared during prohibition. Tobacco use has been falling for decades, while marijuana use has increased. Cocaine was still illegal in the eighties when crack was invented.

Crack use has declined because people see what it does. Anybody who would smoke crack under any circumstances at all is already smoking it. Would you smoke it if it were legal? All of the illegal substances are easily obtained on the black market. The laws aren't stopping anyone.

try walking around with $10,000 in cash

[SethJohnson]

If you are pulled over by the cops on your way to purchase a car from a guy on Craigslist, the cops can outright confiscate your money if you're holding more than $10k in cash.

Since most people on Craigslist require cash transactions, that jeopardizes a great many peoples' right to presumption of innocence. After the money is confiscated, they are put into the position of proving they are innocent.

Seth