Unfilled tunnels a weak link at border
Key points are plugged in U.S. and Mexico, but smugglers may still try to reuse the passages
By Richard Marosi
Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2007
SAN DIEGO — Seven of the largest tunnels discovered under the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years have yet to be filled in, authorities said, raising concerns because smugglers have tried to reuse such passages before.
Among the unfilled tunnels, created to ferry people and drugs, is the longest one yet found — extending nearly half a mile from San Diego to Tijuana. Nearby, another sophisticated passageway once known as the Taj Mahal of tunnels has been sitting unfilled for 13 years, authorities say.
Though concrete plugs usually close off the tunnels where they cross under the border and at main entrance and exit points, the areas in between remain largely intact. Filling the seven tunnels would cost about $2.7 million, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. Accessing tunnels that run under private property is also a problem, as is a lack of coordination with Mexican authorities.
Mexican authorities have told their U.S. counterparts that they've filled their end of the tunnels. But U.S. officials express doubt, citing the high costs and examples of tunnels being compromised. The Mexican attorney general's office, which handles organized crime, did not respond to numerous requests for interviews.
In recent years nearly 50 tunnels have been discovered running under the border from San Diego to Arizona. Most are small, crudely constructed passages — called gopher holes — that are easily destroyed.
But filling the larger, more elaborate tunnels requires enormous amounts of material and expertise, especially because some were probably designed by mining engineers.
To prevent break-ins, authorities say they install motion sensors, which alert them to incursions.
But smugglers in some cases have been able to access existing tunnels by digging around the plugged entrance points, according to the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which heads the San Diego-based U.S. Border Tunnel Task Force.
In Nogales, Ariz., traffickers have used one tunnel three times over a four-year span. Tijuana smugglers were suspected of reusing a tunnel in 2004, one year after its discovery inside a house in Mexico. U.S. authorities have had to reinspect several other tunnels in response to suspicious activity or tips.
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Unclear jurisdiction
Because of overlapping jurisdictions among federal border agencies, the responsibility for subterranean work was unclear for years. The Border Patrol and the Drug Enforcement Administration each had some responsibility.
After the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003, the responsibility for filling tunnels was assigned to one agency: Customs and Border Protection.
Authorities cite this streamlining as progress. But Customs and Border Protection has not filled any tunnels, and has capped only two since assuming control. Michael Friel, an agency spokesman, said the agency is trying to find money in its budget to complete the work. The 2007 budget for Customs and Border Protection is $7.8 billion.
Critics say the existence of so many unfilled tunnels poses a needless — and inexcusable — national security risk.
"I was shocked to learn that these tunnels haven't been filled in. They should be," U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. "The department should move, find money, and do it. This is a huge department with a huge budget. And if they don't have the money, they should tell us, and we will seek to get it in the emergency supplemental."
Among the unfilled passages:
• The so-called Grande Tunnel connecting warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana. Nearly half a mile long, the tunnel was discovered in January 2006 and attracted global media attention as well as groups of local and national politicians, who were given tours of its cave-like depths. The tunnel prompted Feinstein to propose legislation outlawing the construction of tunnels under the border.
• The 1,400-foot tunnel called the "Taj Mahal" because of its lighting system and reinforced concrete walls. The tunnel was discovered in 1993. Five years later, authorities suspected the passage had been reentered after 33 illegal immigrants were found covered in mud near the opening. A metal lid over the tunnel opening had been cut. Border Patrol agents say they never determined for sure if the passage was reused.
• Two long tunnels leading from Mexicali, Mexico, to a quiet residential area in Calexico, Calif. One of them, discovered in 2005, was equipped with a ventilation system, phone line and video surveillance equipment.
It isn't cost alone that can keep tunnels unfilled. Owners of private property also can slow the process. In 2002, after a tunnel was discovered running under part of his property in eastern San Diego County, David Field, a San Diego building inspector, feuded with the DEA over how to fill the quarter-mile-long passage. The DEA wanted to use a concrete-soil mix. Field, for environmental reasons, said he wanted the portion under his land filled only with dirt.
The tunnel featured a battery-operated cart on rails and was used to ferry what may have been tons of drugs over a 10-year period, according to authorities.
In 2002, the DEA sent Field a letter saying that drug traffickers would probably reuse the tunnel if it wasn't completely closed off and threatened to seize Field's property if the tunnel was compromised. Field said the letter surprised him because he knew the agency had never filled the Taj Mahal tunnel found in 1993.
"I said that tunnel is still open…. So how could this be a national emergency?" Field said.
Authorities say they have had to check the tunnel twice to investigate tips that it had been reopened, but have found no evidence.
Smugglers can be determined about reclaiming their tunnels. Take the case of the little light-blue house in Nogales. The vacant building with barred windows is at 438 W. International St., right across the street from the border, where a 20-foot fence provides a formidable above-ground barrier.
Several years ago, smugglers, starting from a drainage canal in Mexico, dug under the border fence, under International Street, and under the yard, to a front room in the house. Wooden slats and carpeting covered the opening, said Agent Mario Cano, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman.
In December 2001, U.S. authorities discovered the 85-foot tunnel — equipped with a rail and cart system — and plugged it. But the smugglers soon dug around the cap at the border and found their way back to the tunnel, Cano said.
Diggers used about 15 feet of that tunnel, then branched off and burrowed an additional 40 feet. They surfaced near the house's driveway and covered the new opening with trash cans. In March 2002, that opening was discovered and sealed, Cano said.
Smugglers went to work again, this time using portions of the first and second tunnel before branching off to surface in another area of the yard, where they covered their latest opening with a tarp. That branch and its opening were discovered in October 2005.
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Digging a new route
This month, authorities returned to the house again. This time, two men were digging a new route, starting inside the home, Cano said. They had progressed only 15 feet, Cano said, but may have intended to link up again with one of the existing tunnels under the property.
None of the passages have been filled, Cano said, although he believes portions may have collapsed because of heavy rains. Even if the tunnels were filled, he said, the problem might not go away.
That's because smugglers have used the concrete fill to make support walls and ceilings for new tunnels, he said. The filled-in passages also serve as markers, guiding crews to new areas where they want to go below ground.
The tunnel diggers' determination has bedeviled U.S. authorities, who have teamed with structural and civil engineers and geologists to devise the best ways to close tunnels. They've experimented with a type of concrete that will cave in if smugglers use it for support.
The cost to close the unfilled tunnels ranges from $200,000 to $700,000.
But addressing the problem here solves only part of the problem because some tunnels extend hundreds of feet into Mexico, where U.S. authorities have no control.
Though Mexican authorities promise to fill tunnels, it's hard to know if they've followed through, said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Frank Marwood, who heads the U.S. Tunnel Task Force.
Mexican authorities have occasionally permitted their U.S. counterparts to inspect tunnels for suspicious activity, including one time when a corpse was discovered on the Mexican side. But it's not routine.
In 2004, smugglers in Tijuana are believed to have reused a tunnel that Mexican authorities said they had filled. The smugglers broke into a tunnel discovered a year earlier and formed a new tunnel heading toward a parking lot near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, U.S. authorities said.
The tunnel has since been filled in on the U.S. side, but the status of the Mexican side is unknown.
Corruption in Mexican border agencies complicates matters. Last year, two Mexican customs officers were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the construction of a tunnel near the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
U.S. authorities also believe Mexico can't afford to fill tunnels. If so, the U.S. should provide assistance, some say. "It's a binational security breach, and I think the way to handle it is by a binational effort," Marwood said.
"If they're not filled in, [smugglers] just branch out at one end or another."
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Los Angeles names and targets city's worst 11 gangs
Mayor and police chief vow to pursue the groups with local-federal law enforcement teams. Experts question the strategy.
By Patrick McGreevy and Richard Winton
Times Staff Writers
February 8, 2007
Launching a counteroffensive against organized street thugs, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police officials took the unusual step Wednesday of identifying the city's 11 worst gangs, then promising to go after them with teams of police, federal agents, probation officers and prosecutors.
Facing 720 identifiable gangs with 39,000 members, the city's plan would target the most dangerous groups, which total at least 800 members. Those gangs are thought to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of mayhem.
The gangs on the list are believed to have committed 6% of the violent crime that occurred in the city last year.
How many local and federal officers will be committed to the anti-gang push remained unclear, however. And given the complexity of what has been a long-standing social problem, some experts questioned whether the plan would be any more effective than past police crackdowns.
Overall, serious crime declined in Los Angeles last year, but violent, gang-related crime increased 14%.
Gang crime was even higher in areas such as South Los Angeles, where it increased 25%, and a section of the north San Fernando Valley where it grew by nearly 160%.
"Street gangs are responsible for the majority of all the murders in Los Angeles and nearly 70% of all the shootings," Villaraigosa said Wednesday at a previously scheduled international summit on gang issues in Universal City. "We must work to address gang violence in a truly comprehensive way."
Although the police had identified certain gangs on occasion, especially when they appeared to be involved in high-profile crimes, the LAPD historically has not called out their names "because of the widely held perception that doing so elevated the criminals' influence and standing in the gang community," the mayor's plan says.
"This new strategy abandons the earlier posture and challenges these menaces by exposing their corrosive behavior to the scrutiny of a more informed and confident community," the plan says.
But Wes McBride, executive director of the California Gang Investigators Assn. and a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, said he was "not sure" that identifying the gangs was a good idea.
"These guys keep the clippings, and I don't know if you can really say which are the most dangerous gangs on any one day," he said. "It is the kind of advertising you don't need."
McBride said he feared that some gangs would feel slighted if not named and might try to up the ante with more violent crimes.
Najee Ali, a community activist and former gang member, said he also was opposed to any ranking system. "The mayor and chief shouldn't be legitimizing the gangs," he said. "To the gang members it is a badge of honor."
The list of targeted gangs includes the 204th Street gang in Harbor Gateway, which is believed to be responsible for recent racially motivated attacks and will be the subject of a special abatement effort. The list also includes Canoga Park Alabama, whose members' recent violent acts have contributed to gang crime skyrocketing 43% in the San Fernando Valley.
The other gangs on the list include 18th Street Westside in the LAPD's Southeast Division; the Avenues gang in the Northeast Division; the Grape Street Crips in the Southeast Division; Black P-Stones in the Southwest Division; the La Mirada Locos in the Rampart and Northeast divisions; the Mara Salvatrucha in the Rampart, Hollywood and Wilshire divisions; the Rollin' 40s and Rollin' 30s Harlem Crips, both in Southwest, and the Rollin' 60s in the 77th Street Division.
The Mara Salvatrucha gang has up to 50,000 members in six countries, but police will focus on cliques that operate in a few local high-crime neighborhoods.
The LAPD already has shifted 18 additional officers to the 204th Street gang turf and is expected to double that amount soon. Smaller deployments are expected for other gang-infested neighborhoods.
An additional 50 officers will be assigned to a Community Safety Operations Center in the Valley, which will analyze real-time crime data to rapidly and strategically deploy officers, including high-visibility patrols, in crime-ridden regions of the Valley.
The mayor and chief are set to formally unveil their plan at 2:30 p.m. today at the Valley's Mission Community Police Station.
Most of the gangs on the list already have been hit with injunctions that restrict their movements and ability to socialize, and some have been in the crosshairs of local and federal authorities for years.
But Villaraigosa said that the new plan is not as piecemeal as previously, and that the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, county probation agents, county and city prosecutors, and the U.S. attorney's office have signed on to step up pressure.
"We, the police, law enforcement, can do a great deal working collectively together, with force magnification, to reduce this problem," said Police Chief William J. Bratton on Wednesday.
But, Villaraigosa added, the gang-suppression plan was only the first step in stabilizing crime-ridden neighborhoods. He said the city would later provide prevention and intervention programs to keep young people out of gangs.
The chief acknowledged that with a police force already stretched thin and expansion occurring slowly, he would have to redeploy existing officers to hot spots in the immediate future.
McBride, the gang expert, cautioned that plans without resources often fall short.
"Until everyone hires a bunch more cops, you are shoving sand in the wind," he said.
In addition to releasing a list of targeted gangs, the LAPD has submitted the name of a fugitive gang member for placement on the FBI's most wanted list and will submit another name when the first fugitive is captured, officials said.
The submissions will come from the LAPD's own list of its 10 most wanted gang fugitives, which also was released Wednesday. It includes Merced "Shadow" Cambero, from the Avenues gang, and Kody "Monster Cody" DeJohn Scott, from the 8-Trey Gangster Crips.
Also, the plan includes the appointment of an LAPD gang coordinator, creates a South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Group, designates additional patrol officers in gang territories to enforce injunctions and warrants, and proposes community symposiums on gang awareness in affected neighborhoods.
Malcolm Klein, a professor emeritus at USC and a gang expert, said the city's gang plan would appear to use a "tip of the iceberg" strategy.
"Targeting hot spots for gangs — that is not much different than the past," Klein said.
He also questioned the methods used to choose which gangs belonged on the worst 11 list.
"The level of violence generated by a gang makes sense to me. But the interracial conflict [at the root of the 204th Street gang murders] is not common, and shooting at police officers also isn't common. The last two are more political than rational."
However, the idea of focusing on the most violent gangs was supported by Alex Alonso, an academic who studies gang territories in Los Angeles and runs the website streetgangs.com.
"What they did under [former Police Chief Daryl F.] Gates didn't work: Suppress everyone. Now they want to be more focused on the most hard-core gang members, that 10% who are really responsible for violence," Alonso said.
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patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
richard.winton@latimes.com
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(INFOBOX BELOW)
Top targets
Here are the areas where the gangs targeted by Los Angeles city officials operate:
1. Canoga Park Alabama
2. Avenues
3. Mara Salvatrucha
4. La Mirada Locos
5. 18th Street Westside
6. Black P-Stones
7. Rollin' 30s
Rollin' 40s
8. Rollin' 60s
9. Grape Street Crips
10. 204th Street
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