Authorities have discovered another secret cartel tunnel connecting Mexico to Arizona, a grim reminder of the violent reality hiding beneath the sand.
The tunnel was found during a joint investigation between the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Sonora State Police in Mexico using drone technology, according to Mexican authorities.
The tunnel, which is incomplete, was discovered in San Luis Río Colorado, near the border wall.
Mexican police say it was a “narcotunnel” used to bring drugs and potentially people into the United States, according to AZ Family.
The discovery marks the third tunnel found near Yuma, Arizona, in 2024.
It is unclear which drug gang the tunnel belongs to, but the Sinaloa cartel frequently uses these underground passages throughout the Southwest to smuggle drugs into the United States, according to the DEA’s 2024 drug threat assessment.
Many of its tunnels “are not built by the cartel, but are part of the water and sewage systems of border cities.”
However, the Sinaloa Cartel is also known to open walkways under homes on the Mexican side of the border.
This tunnel was found during a joint investigation between the United States Customs and Border Patrol and the Sonora State Police in Mexico using drone technology, according to Mexican authorities.
The tunnel – which is incomplete – was discovered in San Luis Río Colorado near the border wall
“The Sinaloa Cartel exercises almost total control over the border region south of Arizona, giving it easy access to San Luis Río Colorado and Nogales (ports of entry),” the DEA said.
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said: “At the center of the synthetic drug crisis are the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels and their associates, whom the DEA is tracking around the world. Suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and money launderers play a role in the network of deliberate and calculated betrayal orchestrated by these cartels.
“The DEA will continue to use all available resources to target these networks and save American lives.”
Drug-related deaths claimed the lives of more than 107,000 Americans in 2022, according to the CDC.
Fentanyl was responsible for about 70 percent of those deaths.
The DEA has seized nearly 30,000 pounds of fentanyl and 79 million pills in 2023. The number of pills alone is nearly three times higher than the 2021 figures, according to the agency.
Most of the methamphetamine sold in the United States is manufactured in Mexico and the drug has become increasingly potent in recent years.
The cartel’s expansion also coincides with that of a violent Venezuelan gang in the United States, and experts warn that the gangsters could have a foothold in more than half of the country by February of this year.
The tunnel, which is incomplete, was found in San Luis Río Colorado, near the border wall. Police believe it was built to be used as a ‘narcotunnel’ to bring drugs and potentially people into the US.
The Sinaloa drug cartel uses tunnels throughout the Southwest to smuggle drugs into the United States. It is not clear if the tunnel belongs to them.
By December 2024, the Aragua Train, which has been dubbed the ‘epitome of evil’ and ‘MS-13 on steroids,’ is already operating in 18 states.
This includes some of the most remote corners of the United States in Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming. Bloodthirsty criminals also maintain strongholds in major Texas cities, as well as New York and Chicago.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, former Colorado and Wyoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Fabbricatore said: ‘We’re going to start hearing stories about arrests everywhere.
‘They’re in 17 states now. “I wouldn’t be surprised if by February the number was higher than 25.”
Known as TdA to law enforcement, the gang originated in a Venezuelan prison.
Since then, members of the South American mafia have infiltrated the United States across the southern border, hiding among the million Venezuelan immigrants who have entered the country under the Biden administration.
They can often be identified by telltale tattoos, including a train, a crown, a clock, and an AK-47.
The gang racked up more than 500 arrests in New York City alone in 2024.
More than a dozen US states have a presence of the band Tren De Aragua
Venezuela’s most violent gang, Tren de Aragua, has moved its headquarters across the border from the United States, in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez.
Most of the arrests were on robbery and grand theft charges, but the gangsters’ criminal records also include assaults and auto theft, the data revealed.
The gang has also been recruiting gang children as young as 11 years old.
The notorious organized crime group has reportedly recruited a squad of children as young as 11 known as the ‘Little Devils of 42nd Street’ to rob stores and pedestrians with guns and knives in New York City.
Police said more than 800 gang-related crimes have been committed in the Big Apple this year, a number that has doubled since 2023.