Carl Senna's List: USA-Mexico Relations

Smugglers of Drugs Burrow on Border

Joshua Lott for The New York Times
Kevin Hecht, a Border Patrol agent, in a smuggling tunnel under Nogales, Ariz. More Photos »
By MARC LACEY
Published: October 2, 2010
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NOGALES, Ariz. — Drone aircraft patrol the United States-Mexico border from the skies. Fast boats look out for smugglers at sea. And tens of thousands of Border Patrol agents use trucks, horses, all-terrain vehicles and bicycles to stop unauthorized crossers on land.
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Trafficking in the Southwest Goes Underground
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Joshua Lott for The New York Times
A drainage pipe in Nogales, Ariz. leading to a storm drainage tunnel is used for drug and human smuggling from Mexico into the U.S. More Photos »
But there is another route across the border, one in which smugglers slither north. As enforcement efforts have increased and border barriers have been built, tunneling has gained in popularity, with Nogales becoming the capital.

On Thursday, the Border Patrol was filling an underground tunnel that had been discovered right under the immigration checkpoint in Nogales. But even before the concrete was poured to make that tunnel inoperative, another subterranean passageway was discovered a block away.

The second tunnel, which had been used to bring bales of marijuana from Mexico, will be filled as well. There are patches, in fact, all across this city, where the authorities have tried to tap the tunnels that traffickers build off the extensive underground storm drain system that connects Nogales with another city by the same name across the fence in Mexico.

With profit margins so huge, drug traffickers pushing their wares across the border are an enterprising lot. No matter how much the United States government pours into the region to stop them, there always seem to be novel attempts to elude detection.

And the two Nogaleses are where drug trafficking has literally gone underground. Burrowing from one country to the oth