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The tunnel linking a Tijuana warehouse to another in Otay Mesa was equipped with a hydraulic elevator, electric rail cars, lighting, wooden floors and a storeroom.
The subterranean passage discovered in 2011 was designed to secretly move tons of marijuana north — a feat of engineering that U.S. authorities would later marvel at as the “most elaborate smuggling tunnel” to be uncovered along the U.S.-Mexico border at the time.
It was the work of Jose Sanchez Villalobos, one of the Sinaloa cartel’s high-level managers, whose efforts continued to raise the profile on drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s obsession with underground routes.