'Sophisticated' border tunnel leads to seizure of tons of pot

Greg Morrison
CNN

(CNN) - The discovery of a "sophisticated" tunnel between a Mexican eat-in kitchen and two Southern California warehouses led authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to arrest at least nine suspects and seize between 20 and 30 tons of marijuana.

The Thanksgiving Day find followed an eight-month investigation and came about three weeks after authorities discovered a similar drug tunnel in another warehouse in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego.

Between the two incidents, agents in the United States and Mexico seized roughly the equivalent of one marijuana cigarette for each of California's nearly 37 million residents, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Ralph Partridge said Friday.

"This is obviously not a Mom and Pop operation," Miguel Unzueta, a San Diego-based agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday. "This is a major, significant drug cartel working."

Unzueta described the nearly half-mile-long and, in spots, 90-foot-deep passageway as "very sophisticated," even more so than the one found earlier this month.

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