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Smuggling tunnels are secret passages used for the smuggling of goods and people. The term is also used where the tunnels are built in response to a siege.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2016) |
Smuggling tunnels are secret passages used for the smuggling of goods and people. The term is also used where the tunnels are built in response to a siege.
The Sarajevo Tunnel operated during the Siege of Sarajevo as a passage underneath the no-man's land of the city's (closed) airport, providing a vital smuggling link for the beleaguered city residents. Guns were smuggled into the city and people were smuggled out. After the Bosnian War, the Sarajevo Tunnel Museum was built onto the historic private house whose cellar served as the entrance to Sarajevo Tunnel.
More than 70 tunnels were used to smuggle people under the Berlin Wall between West Berlin and East Berlin. [1]
A 700-meter smuggling tunnel with a narrow gauge railway was revealed in July 2012 between Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and Vyšné Nemecké, Slovakia, at the border of Schengen Area. The tunnel used professional mining and security technologies. It was used primarily for smuggling of cigarettes. [2]
Many villages on the southern coast of England have a local legend of a smugglers' tunnel, although the entrances to most of the actual smugglers' tunnels have been lost or bricked up.
Some tunnel stories turn out to be plausible, such as the tunnel at Hayle in Cornwall, which seems to have been built specifically for smuggling. However, tunnels often double as a storm drain or some other functional channel, or else as an extension of a natural fissure in the rock as at Methleigh and Porthcothan, [3] but tunnels and caches (both wholly excavated and formed by extending natural formations) are more commonplace where covert landings in areas with few sheltered beaches exposed smugglers to the attentions of the Revenue Men.
While many sites are rudimentary, extensive workings have been found which show evidence of skillful excavation, strongly implying the assistance of tin miners.[ citation needed ]
Beith in North Ayrshire was a notorious haunt of smugglers at one time, and legend has it that a tunnel ran from the town centre down to Kilbirnie Loch.[ citation needed ]
In early 2005, a group of Canadian drug smugglers took up the idea, and constructed a tunnel between a greenhouse in Langley, British Columbia and the basement of a house in Lynden, Washington, which lay across the ditch marking the Canada–US border. The house on the Langley side was on 0 Avenue ("Zero Avenue"), which runs parallel to the border and is the baseline of Langley's avenue-numbering system. They bought the two properties and began construction work. Authorities were alerted when a neighbor noticed the large-scale construction work being undertaken in the greenhouse. Inspection revealed that tons of construction material were entering, and piles of earth were coming out.
It became known within a short time, by both American and Canadian border authorities, that a tunnel was being built. Video and audio devices were installed secretly by United States customs officials both at the termini and in the tunnel itself. On July 14, the tunnel having been completed, the first packs of marijuana began going through. Officials raided the home soon afterward and arrested the three men, who then appeared before court in Seattle. [4] The tunnel was sealed and the roads above it were rebuilt, but the US house where the tunnel exited still exists. [5]
As of September 30, 2015, 183 illicit cross-border tunnels have been discovered in the United States since Fiscal Year 1990. [6]
On January 25, 2006, a tunnel was found on the US-Mexico border by a joint US Drug Enforcement Administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and US Border Patrol task force. The 2,400-foot (730 m) long tunnel runs from a warehouse near the Tijuana airport to a warehouse in San Diego. When discovered, it was devoid of people, but it did contain 2 short tons (1,800 kg) of marijuana. It was 5 feet (1.5 m) high and up to 90 feet (27 m) deep. The floor was made of cement, and the walls were exposed clay, with lights lining one side, a ventilation system to keep fresh air circulating, and a water drainage system to remove infiltrating ground water. Authorities said it was unclear how long the tunnel had been in operation.
On January 30, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a Mexican citizen who was linked to the tunnel via the US warehouse, operated by V&F Distributors LLC. On the Friday before, January 27, immigration authorities reportedly received information that the Mexican cartel behind the operation was threatening the lives of any agents involved with the construction or occupation of the tunnel. US Customs and Immigration, however, pledged to protect them as best they could. Authorities believe Tijuana's Arellano-Felix drug syndicate, or some other well-known drug cartel, was behind the building and operation of the tunnel. [7]
On November 26, 2010, a 2,600-foot (790 m) tunnel was discovered linking Tijuana to Otay Mesa, San Diego, California. [8] In the same month another tunnel was discovered between these two cities. Both tunnels were discovered by a San Diego task force and are believed to be the work of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. Over 40 short tons (36,000 kg) of cannabis was found and confiscated between the two. [9]
An analysis of US-Mexico smuggling tunnels, the US-Canada smuggling tunnel, and the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, Gaza Strip, was completed by Lichtenwald and Perri as part of a transnational analysis of smuggling tunnels. [10] [11] Lichtenwald and Perri outlined sources and methods for evaluating which tunnels are used by different populations in various parts of the world to smuggle contraband that does not threaten a nation's security, which tunnels that smuggle contraband that does threaten a nation's security, and hybrid tunnels that smuggle contraband that threaten a nation's security as well as that which does not.
In December 2012, a tunnel 3 feet in diameter and 100 yards long, with electricity and ventilation, was found near the Nogales, Arizona, port of entry. [12] On February 14, 2014, another underground drug tunnel was discovered in Nogales.
The tunnel spanned 481 feet (147 m), or longer than 1.5 American football fields. The tunnel was being used to smuggle marijuana and other drugs into the US. Another 590 pounds (270 kg) of marijuana was seized after federal agents stopped a vehicle they saw driving away from the residence. Some 46 pounds (21 kg) of marijuana and 0.5 pounds (0.23 kg) of heroin were found inside the tunnel. Three people have been arrested in connection with the bust. [13]
On March 19, 2020, a tunnel connecting Tijuana to San Diego was discovered by the San Diego Tunnel Task Force. The tunnel extended 2,000 feet (610 m) and was outfitted with an underground rail system, ventilation, and lighting. Over 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of cocaine, 86 pounds (39 kilograms) of methamphetamine, 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) of heroin, 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms) of marijuana and 2 pounds (0.91 kilograms) of fentanyl were seized. [14]
In May 2022, a tunnel connecting Tijuana to San Diego was discovered. The tunnel extended "six football fields" in length and was outfitted with an underground rail system, ventilation, and an electricity supply. Over 1,762 pounds (799 kg) of cocaine, 165 pounds (75 kg) of meth and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of heroin were seized. [15]
Pakistan has been using Tunnels to infiltrate terrorists and smuggle weapons, explosives, contrabands to India. These terrorists belong to globally sanctioned proscribed organizations like LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen. [16]
Since 1997, a total of 12 tunnels (5 in Punjab frontier and 7 in Jammu frontier) have been discovered by BSF under the India-Pakistan Border, with latest being discovered in 2021. [17] The Tunnel discovered in 2021 was also used by Mohammad Umar Farooq, the Main planner of 2019 Pulwama attack in Jammu and Kashmir. These tunnels are constructed by Engineer Wing of Pakistan Rangers and Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers. [18] [19] [20]
Throughout the years, Border Security Force has discovered several smuggling tunnels linking India with Bangladesh, these tunnels are used by Bangladeshi criminals to smuggle cattle, contraband and illegal immigrants. [21]
As of 1990, as many as four tunnels linking North Korea to South Korea have been discovered by South Korean authorities under the Demilitarized Zone. It is believed that the tunnels were planned as a military invasion route or to facilitate intelligence operations as opposed to smuggling controlled items. It is believed that there may be up to 20 tunnels crossing the border, however neither government has acknowledged the discovery or existence other than the four known tunnels. [22]
The third tunnel is now open to South Korean visitors as a tourist site, however the tunnel has been permanently blocked with three concrete barriers at the Military Demarcation Line between North and South Korea. It can be accessed via a second tunnel dug by South Korean authorities in 1978 to intercept the then yet incomplete North Korean tunnel. The North Korean portion was 1,635 metres (1.016 miles) long, with a maximum height of 1.95 metres (6 feet 5 inches), 2.1 metres (6 feet 11 inches) wide, and at a depth of 73 m (240 ft) below ground. It has been estimated that up to 30,000 men per hour could travel through the tunnel with light weaponry. [23]
The Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels connect Egypt and the Gaza Strip, bypassing the Egypt–Gaza barrier built by Israel along the international border established by the Egypt–Israel peace treaty. The tunnels pass under the Philadelphi corridor, an area specified in the Oslo accords as being under Israeli military control, in order to secure the border with Egypt. [ citation needed ]
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, social scientists define smuggling as the purposeful movement across a border in contravention to the relevant legal frameworks.
People smuggling, under U.S. law, is "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents".
The Tijuana Cartel or Arellano-Félix-Cartel is a Mexican drug cartel based in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Founded by the Arellano-Félix family, the cartel once was described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico". However, since the 2006 Sinaloa Cartel incursion in Baja California and the fall of the Arellano-Félix brothers, the Tijuana Cartel has been reduced to a few cells. In 2016, the organization became known as Cartel Tijuana Nueva Generación and began to align itself under the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, along with Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) to create an anti-Sinaloa alliance, in which the Jalisco New Generation Cartel heads. This alliance has since dwindled as the Tijuana, Jalisco New Generation, and Sinaloa cartels all now battle each other for trafficking influence in the city of Tijuana and the region of Baja California.
The Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels are smuggling tunnels that had been dug under the Philadelphi Route along the Egypt–Gaza border. They were dug to subvert the blockade of the Gaza Strip to smuggle in fuel, food, weapons and other goods into the Gaza Strip. After the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, was split by this buffer zone. One part is located in the southern part of Gaza, and the smaller part of the town is in Egypt. After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the Philadelphi Corridor was placed under the control of the Palestine Authority until 2007, when Hamas seized power in 2007, and Egypt and Israel closed borders with the Gaza Strip.
Smuggling is a behavior that has occurred ever since there were laws or a moral code that tax or forbid access to a specific person or object. At the core of any smuggling organization is the economic relationship between supply and demand. From the organization's point of view, the issues are what the consumer wants, and how much the consumer is willing to pay the smuggler or smuggling organization to obtain it.
Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, commonly known as "El Chapo", is a Mexican former drug lord and a former leader within the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate. He was considered to be one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world.
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, commonly referred to by his aliases El Jefe de Jefes and El Padrino, is a convicted Mexican drug kingpin who was one of the founders of the Guadalajara Cartel, which controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border in the 1980s.
The Guadalajara Cartel, also known as The Federation, was a Mexican drug cartel which was formed in 1980 by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo in order to ship cocaine and marijuana to the United States. Among the first of the Mexican drug trafficking groups to work with the Colombian cocaine mafias, the Guadalajara Cartel prospered from the cocaine trade. Throughout the 1980s, the cartel controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border. It had operations in various regions in Mexico which included the states of Jalisco, Baja California, Colima, Sonora, Chihuahua and Sinaloa among others. Multiple modern present day drug cartels such as the Tijuana, Juárez and Sinaloa cartels originally started out as branches or "plazas" of the Guadalajara Cartel before its eventual disintegration.
Eduardo Arellano Félix is a Mexican drug trafficker, brother of Benjamín, Ramón, Javier and sister, Enedina, all drug traffickers. The Arellano-Félix Organization, also known as the Tijuana Cartel, has been responsible for numerous murders and the smuggling of thousands of tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine for more than a decade. The DEA believes that the Arellano-Félix brothers were responsible for the numerous smuggling tunnels that were found in January 2006.
USCGC Venturous (WMEC-625) is a United States Coast Guard medium endurance cutter. The vessel was constructed by the American Shipbuilding Company in Lorain, Ohio in 1967 and commissioned in 1968. The ship has served on both the west and eastern coasts of the United States. The vessel is used for search and rescue, fishery law enforcement, border enforcement and smuggling interdiction along the coasts and in the Caribbean Sea.
The Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the Guzmán-Zambada Organization, the Federation, the Blood Alliance, or the Pacific Cartel, is a large, international organized crime syndicate based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico that specializes in illegal drug trafficking and money laundering.
La Familia Michoacana, La Familia, is a Mexican drug cartel and organized crime syndicate based in the Mexican state of Michoacán. They are known to produce large amounts of methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories in Michoacan. Formerly allied to the Gulf Cartel—as part of Los Zetas—it split off in 2006. The cartel was founded by Carlos Rosales Mendoza, a close associate of Osiel Cárdenas. The second leader, Nazario Moreno González, known as El Más Loco, preached his organization's divine right to eliminate enemies. He carried a "bible" of his own sayings and insisted that his army of traffickers and hitmen avoid using the narcotics they produce and sell. Nazario Moreno's partners were José de Jesús Méndez Vargas, Servando Gómez Martínez and Enrique Plancarte Solís, each of whom has a bounty of $2 million for his capture, and were contesting the control of the organization.
Borderline is a 1980 American action crime drama film directed and co-written by Jerrold Freedman. Starring Charles Bronson, Ed Harris and Bruno Kirby, it is set in the San Diego–Tijuana area of the U.S.-Mexican border and follows a United States Border Patrol (USBP) Agent who poses as an illegal alien to catch a killer smuggling laborers from Mexico.
Carlos Alberto Arellano Félix is a Mexican medical doctor who is known for his illegal involvement in money laundering for the Tijuana Cartel. Carlos was born on the 20th of August in the year 1955 in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa. Historian Paul Eiss states that Culiacán is the origin of modern drug trafficking and the home of Mexico's most powerful drug cartel. Carlos is currently working as a licensed surgeon. He finished his surgical training at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara The Tijuana Cartel is an organisation that is notorious for being one of the most well-known drug trafficking groups in Mexico to smuggle goods into the United States. Carlos’ family is made up of seven brothers and four sisters who inherited the Arellano Felix Organisation from their godfather, Miguel Ángel Félix. Despite Carlos’ involvement in money laundering for the Tijuana Cartel, he is one of two brothers who remains free and is not wanted by the United States law enforcement.
Operation Terminus was a 30-month investigation into a Sinaloa Cartel drug smuggling ring in Arizona, California and Indiana. Beginning sometime in 2012, Operation Terminus investigators seized $7.5 million in cash, 485 pounds of methamphetamine, 50 Kilograms of cocaine, 4.5 pounds of heroin and 37 guns, including assault rifles, sniper rifles, and various other small arms. 77 suspects were indicted, and an "extensive drug trafficking network" stretching from Sinaloa, to Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, was uncovered. Police officials have also reported that as result of the legalization of marijuana in some U.S. states, Mexican cartels are turning to more dangerous illegals drugs to make up for lost profits. A police spokesman in Tempe, Arizona, Lieutenant Mike Pooley commented on the situation: "They are plowing marijuana fields and planting opiates. It's killing our youths. It's an epidemic."
Operation Kruz Control was a twelve-month, multi-agency investigation of a drug trafficking organization in southern Arizona, between December 2012 and December 2013.
The Arizona borderlands are the geographic and cultural region north of the Arizona portion of the US-Mexico border. The area is unique in that it features both an international border and the Tohono O'oham sovereign nation along much of that border. Frequent and persistent topics of interest in the area include the presence of illegal immigration, the confluence of local, state, and national politics surrounding the border, conservation and sustainable living, and the presence of drug traffickers and paramilitary forces in the vicinity.
The 2015 opening of the Cross Border Xpress terminal and bridge to the Tijuana Airport, also referred to as the Tijuana Cross-border Terminal and the Puerta de las Californias, was preceded by a quarter century of negotiations that were impacted by political, economic and security issues.
The illegal drug trade in Japan is the illegal production, transport, sale, and use of prohibited drugs in Japan. The drug trade is influenced by various factors, including history, economic conditions, and cultural norms. While methamphetamine is historically the most widely trafficked illegal drug in post-World War II Japan, marijuana, cocaine, and other prohibited substances are also present. Additionally, Japan's status as a developed economy and the presence of organized crime in Japan have made it a target of the international drug trade.
The Smuggler's Gulch is part of a steep walled canyon about 2 miles (3.2 km) inland of the Pacific Ocean. The canyon crosses the Mexico–United States border, between Tijuana, Baja California, and San Diego, California, and Smuggler's Gulch is the part of the canyon on the US side of the border. It may also be called Cañón del Matadero or Valle Montezuma in Spanish, but these names apply more generally to the whole canyon. Smuggling activities within Smuggler's Gulch have occurred since the 19th century, giving this part of the canyon its name.
As of September 30, 2015, 183 illicit cross-border tunnels have been discovered in the United States since Fiscal Year 1990
