Saturday, 23 October 1999
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/1023N04.html

Lack of curiosity leads to Nogales drug suspects' lair





Photos by Aaron Latham,
The Arizona Daily Star

Grupo Beta agent Gerardo Espinoza climbs out of a storm drain in Nogales, Sonora, that the newly found tunnel leads into



By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star

NOGALES, Ariz. - It didn't seem natural to officers who had swooped down on a Nogales home Thursday night that the people next door weren't curiously poking their heads outside.
So yesterday morning the officers did a ``knock and talk'' - they knocked on the door and asked for permission to search.
Inside, they found jackhammers and recently laid tile.
They were evidence of a second drug tunnel under construction next door to one officers had found Thursday night, said Lt. Eddie Cota of the Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force.
The occupants of 170 W. Loma St. apparently had recently opened a hole in the floor and begun excavating a tunnel.
Cota, a Nogales police officer assigned to the task force, said they began covering it up when more than 40 officers appeared at 160 W. Loma.
``As we were working, they were working next door, too,'' Cota said.
For now, it is unclear whether the completed tunnel and the unfinished one are related.
But officers think the traffickers stopped using the finished tunnel after officers seized three drug loads from vehicles leaving the house at 160 W. Loma.
The first seizure took place March 21; the last one May 21. They totaled more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and 1,253 pounds of cocaine.
``When we were working the area, we knew we were being watched by them,'' Cota said.
``The next door (tunnel effort) might have been a backup plan.''
If it had been completed, the tunnel would have been the fourth found in Nogales this year.
In February, task force officers found two tunnels that led from homes a couple of blocks south of those searched this week.
Most of the tunnels lead to the Nogales Wash, which is covered as it flows from Mexico into Arizona.
Little water usually flows through the wash, which functions as a thoroughfare for undocumented migrants and drug traffickers. In many places it is 10 feet high and 12 feet wide, framed in concrete.


The tunnel led from inside this house at 160 W. Loma St. to a drainage tunnel in the street.


Nogales police and Border Patrol agents check the tunnels infrequently, perhaps twice a week, Cota said.
Teams of agents trained in patrolling confined spaces and dressed to protect their health are assigned to tunnel duty.
On the Mexican side, however, members of the Grupo Beta migrant protection force patrol the tunnels daily. The Mexican army does so occasionally, too.
Grupo Beta agent Gerardo Espinoza said there are at least 21 entrances to the network of underground washes and drainage tunnels beneath Nogales, Sonora.


Padilla

Some entrances are so small that drug traffickers would have trouble fitting their drug loads in the openings. But one can walk into other entrances bent slightly over.
``They see us leave, and they enter,'' Espinoza said.
The smugglers who used the 160 W. Loma house likely had to walk at least a half-hour underground before they reached the appropriate 2-foot-diameter drain pipe.
There, they must have tied their bundles of cocaine and marijuana to ropes.
Inside the house, co-conspirators must have pulled the bundles through the drain pipe, then through the approximately 50-foot, hand-dug tunnel, Cota said.
Although the tunnel found Thursday was not particularly elaborate, it represents more than just a whim, Cota said.
``You do have to make your connections to be able to use the wash,'' he said.


Special to The Arizona Daily Star
A hole in the floor inside 160 W. Loma St. leads under the street in front of the house.

He added that the tunnel was dome-shaped, about 3 feet high and 2 feet wide. It's a shape that reduces the risk of collapse, Cota said.
The man at the house when officers served a search warrant Thursday, Jesus Mendoza Padilla, 19, has been charged with endangerment and criminal damage.
The former charge relates to the potential safety hazard of the tunnel, the latter to its construction.
The two people found in the house next door yesterday morning were undocumented aliens and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol.
Further information on them was unavailable yesterday.
Records from the Santa Cruz County Assessor's Office list Arnold Morales of Tucson as the owner of the 160 W. Loma home, and Cesar and Martha Ochoa of Nogales as owners of the 170 W. Loma house.
Attempts to speak with the Ochoas were unsuccessful, but Morales, owner of the Tucson-based Armor Investment Co., said he believes he still owns the mortgage for the 160 W. Loma house.
But Morales said another man - whose name he didn't know - has been handling ownership duties for about two years.
``I own about 20 properties,'' Morales said. ``I don't know what happened to that one.''
When asked if he knew anything about a drug tunnel, Morales was apparently so shocked he hung up the phone. He immediately called back.
``I don't know anything about it,'' Morales said. ``I'm checking with my attorney. I don't think I need one, but I'm checking.''
Morales said he didn't feel comfortable commenting further without first consulting his attorneys.
Lt. Raul Rodriguez, commander of the metro task force, said investigators will likely pursue the paper trail now, using some of the documents uncovered at the house as well as public records.
But frequently there are straw purchasers and front men involved in drug-related properties, Rodriguez said.
The investigators believe the tunnel was ordered by a major drug-trafficking organization based in Nogales, Sonora. But they declined to name the organization.
``We have leads, and we know who are the players,'' Rodriguez said.
Arizona Daily Star reporter Hanna Miller contributed to this story.


CROSS-BORDER TUNNEL DISCOVERIES
May 25, 1999: A cross-border tunnel in Naco is discovered. It links a trailer on the U.S. side to homes in Naco, Sonora.
Jan. 19, 1999: Two tunnels are found in Nogales, Ariz. One connects a house to Nogales Wash, allowing drug traffickers to cross the border undetected. Another, longer tunnel connects an apartment next to the house to a crawl space beneath Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Its purpose remains unclear.
1995: A 200-yard tunnel runs from a Nogales, Ariz., Methodist church into Mexico. It had been shut down before it was discovered.
1990: Probably the most famous tunnel is discovered running from a luxury home in Agua Prieta, Sonora, to a storeroom under a Douglas cement warehouse. It's 200 feet long, 30 feet wide and concrete-lined.
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Drug Tunnel Story #2