The DEA announced on Tuesday the results of the hard work conducted by the San Diego Tunnel Task Force (SDTTF). SDTTF uncovered a vast cross-border drug-smuggling tunnel that extends from Mexico into a warehouse in a commercial complex in the Otay Mesay area of San Diego.

SDTTF is comprised of federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Border Patrol, and the United States Attorney’s Office.

Transnational narcotics smuggling is not a new phenomenon for the task force. The Task Force had previously uncovered the longest known cross-border tunnel in the Southeast this past January. That tunnel, measured at 4,309 total feet (over three-quarters of a mile), was sophisticated, and featured an “extensive rail/cart system, forced air ventilation, high voltage electrical cables and panels, an elevator at the tunnel entrance, and a complex drainage system.”

Working in cooperation with Mexican authorities, the SDTTF first located the San Diego tunnel’s entrance in Tijuana, Mexico, and used subsequently presented evidence to obtain a federal search warrant for the warehouse in San Diego. Execution of this warrant led to the discovery of the Otay Mesa exit point.