Call them blood tunnels.
Over the past quarter century, 181 clandestine drug tunnels under the U.S.-Mexico border have been discovered by law enforcement. The public's fascination with the tunnels is renewed every time the U.S. Border Patrol discovers a new passageway and video of the cavernous passageways is played on newscasts.
But law enforcement authorities on both sides of the border say the billion dollar cartel that builds the tunnels extols kidnapping, extortion and even mass murder in order to carry-out the feats of engineering. Hardly amusing.
"There's nothing funny about the tunnels at all. Not only in the way slave labor and even murders are used to get them done," said DEA Phoenix Special in Charge Doug Coleman. "But think about what can come across unregulated into our country. It's not just drugs we're talking about. You can put weapons of mass destruction through there. You can put biological agents through there."
The expertise and manpower required to construct the tunnels are illustrated in an eye-opening story by Monte Reel in a recent New Yorker Magazine report. The Sinaloa drug cartel that builds the tunnels was once again in the news this summer after drug kingping "El Chapo" Guzman slipped underground at a maximum security federal prison in Alitplano, Mexico through a 4,921 foot-long tunnel excavated for his grand escape.
The grueling work required to dig the tunnels is often carried out by hostages – young men from Mexico who are lured into believing they have actual job opportunities. The men are then held captive in buildings on the edge of the Mexico border and notified that if they attempt to escape, their families will be killed. The men are given one order: dig.
"They're gonna grab these kids and are gonna hold them hostage until they finish the work," Coleman said. Federal officials estimate it can take nine months or more to build the typical drug tunnel. "Sometimes they (cartel leaders) pay them. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes when the job is over they will make them disappear."
The slave-labor required to build the tunnels makes up just another despicable aspect of the drug cartel industry. It is another price paid by innocent people to enhance the influence and bank accounts of Mexican drug lords and associates.
As experts note, cartels built the tunnels at a cost of anywhere between $1 to 2 million. But the investment quickly pays itself off. Even if the tunnels stay open for just a few hours, the cartels can move enough drugs through to pay for expenses, and pay for many more tunnels.
