Officials: Border tunnel not completed: Officials
BY JAMES GILBERT AND CESAR NEYOY, STAFF WRITERS
Federal authorities confirmed on Monday the cross-border tunnel discovered last week by Border Patrol had not been completed yet.
However, Immigration and Custom Enforcement spokesperson Virginia Kice added that she could not release any more information about the cross-border tunnel yet due to the ongoing investigation.
Prosecutor Deann Sandry of the Yuma County Attorney's Office, who has been assigned the case added, "nothing came through that tunnel."
The Mexican national who was arrested Thursday in San Luis, Ariz., at a residence in connection to the tunnel has been identified as Luis Carlos Ayala Gonzalez.
Gonzalez has been charged with two counts of participating in a criminal syndicate, which is a class 2 felony and carries a three year to 12-3/4 year sentence if convicted.
Sandry added that depending on the investigation, more charges could be filed against Gonzalez and other arrests could be made in the case.
Agent Karla Davalos, a spokeswoman for the Yuma sector Border Patrol, said on Friday the agency received information regarding the possibility of a tunnel at a home on the east side of San Luis, Ariz., on Thursday and went to investigate.
Upon agents arrival to the residence, which was east of the port of entry, agents found heavy construction equipment and other material inside the home and arrested one individual.
"Construction had not begun in the residence yet," Sandry said.
The investigation into the possible tunnel was then turned over to Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
While ICE still isn't releasing the address of the residence yet, the entrance to the cross-border tunnel originated in San Luis Rio Colorado, Son.
According to authorities from the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) they are awaiting state experts to arrive so that they can continue their investigation into the tunnel.
The state officials will head the investigation, after removing the machinery located in the apartment building in an alley way half block south of Capitan Carlos G. Calles Avenue (which was previously known as International Avenue) between 13th Street and 14th Street less than 100 meters from the international boundary.
There was excavation machinery, like the type used for mining, that was probably being used to excavate the tunnels, which at this point the depth is unknown because it was found full of water.
Aside from the excavating machinery the military found several tanks of water and many different tools dispersed between three different openings, one being the main tunnel.
An undisclosed amount of marijuana was also found, no one on the Mexican side has been arrested.
The tunnel entrance is also just 984 feet from where another drug tunnel was found last year.
Border Patrol agents discovered the first known tunnel to have been found in the Yuma sector in September of 2007 approximately one mile east of the San Luis port of entry, at 6th Avenue and Urtuzuastegui Street.
According to Sun archives, a Border Patrol maintenance man was using a watering truck to pack down the road for dust control around noon Monday when his truck fell about three feet into what was believed at the time to be a sinkhole.
That tunnel, which was still under construction, was started on the Mexican side of the border in a private home at Carlos G. Calles St. 1008, San Luis Rio Colorado, Son. It was 250 feet long - with 142 feet of it in Mexico and the remainder in the U.S.
http://www.yumasun.com/news/border_45749___article.html/tunnel_completed.html
BY JAMES GILBERT AND CESAR NEYOY, STAFF WRITERS
Federal authorities confirmed on Monday the cross-border tunnel discovered last week by Border Patrol had not been completed yet.
However, Immigration and Custom Enforcement spokesperson Virginia Kice added that she could not release any more information about the cross-border tunnel yet due to the ongoing investigation.
Prosecutor Deann Sandry of the Yuma County Attorney's Office, who has been assigned the case added, "nothing came through that tunnel."
The Mexican national who was arrested Thursday in San Luis, Ariz., at a residence in connection to the tunnel has been identified as Luis Carlos Ayala Gonzalez.
Gonzalez has been charged with two counts of participating in a criminal syndicate, which is a class 2 felony and carries a three year to 12-3/4 year sentence if convicted.
Sandry added that depending on the investigation, more charges could be filed against Gonzalez and other arrests could be made in the case.
Agent Karla Davalos, a spokeswoman for the Yuma sector Border Patrol, said on Friday the agency received information regarding the possibility of a tunnel at a home on the east side of San Luis, Ariz., on Thursday and went to investigate.
Upon agents arrival to the residence, which was east of the port of entry, agents found heavy construction equipment and other material inside the home and arrested one individual.
"Construction had not begun in the residence yet," Sandry said.
The investigation into the possible tunnel was then turned over to Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
While ICE still isn't releasing the address of the residence yet, the entrance to the cross-border tunnel originated in San Luis Rio Colorado, Son.
According to authorities from the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) they are awaiting state experts to arrive so that they can continue their investigation into the tunnel.
The state officials will head the investigation, after removing the machinery located in the apartment building in an alley way half block south of Capitan Carlos G. Calles Avenue (which was previously known as International Avenue) between 13th Street and 14th Street less than 100 meters from the international boundary.
There was excavation machinery, like the type used for mining, that was probably being used to excavate the tunnels, which at this point the depth is unknown because it was found full of water.
Aside from the excavating machinery the military found several tanks of water and many different tools dispersed between three different openings, one being the main tunnel.
An undisclosed amount of marijuana was also found, no one on the Mexican side has been arrested.
The tunnel entrance is also just 984 feet from where another drug tunnel was found last year.
Border Patrol agents discovered the first known tunnel to have been found in the Yuma sector in September of 2007 approximately one mile east of the San Luis port of entry, at 6th Avenue and Urtuzuastegui Street.
According to Sun archives, a Border Patrol maintenance man was using a watering truck to pack down the road for dust control around noon Monday when his truck fell about three feet into what was believed at the time to be a sinkhole.
That tunnel, which was still under construction, was started on the Mexican side of the border in a private home at Carlos G. Calles St. 1008, San Luis Rio Colorado, Son. It was 250 feet long - with 142 feet of it in Mexico and the remainder in the U.S.
http://www.yumasun.com/news/border_45749___article.html/tunnel_completed.html