U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents have arrested three members of a Canadian-based drug trafficking ring accused of smuggling marijuana into the United States through an elaborate, 360-foot-long tunnel dug under the U.S.-Canada border in Washington state.
DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said Francis Devandra Raj, 30, Timothy Woo, 34, and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, all of Surrey, British Columbia, were charged yesterday in U.S. District Court in Seattle with conspiracy to distribute and import marijuana.
Law-enforcement authorities said the tunnel ran at depths ranging up to 10 feet, was strengthened with iron reinforcing bar and 2-by-6 wood supports, had a concrete floor, fiberglass walls, a ventilation system, and video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside, they said.
Although tunnels have been found at the southern border of the United States, this is the first tunnel discovered between Canada and the United States.
Mr. Payne said investigators learned that Mr. Raj owns the property on the Canadian side of the border where the entrance to the tunnel was hidden under a Quonset hut in Aldergrove, British Columbia. On the American side, he said, the tunnel terminated beneath the living room floor of a home in Lynden, Wash.
The tunnel was completed early this month, he said. The construction process had been under observation by U.S. and Canadian authorities for eight months.
“This tunnel seizure, the first of its kind on the United States and Canada border, is one of only 34 cross-border tunnels ever discovered in the United States,” said DEA agent Rodney Benson, who heads the agency’s Seattle field office. “This unregulated and uncontrolled point of entry could have constituted a real threat to the United States, not only in terms of drug trafficking, but to the national security of our nation.”
Using a delayed-notice search warrant, Mr. Payne said, DEA and other federal agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol, entered the home in Lynden on July 2 to examine the tunnel and install cameras and listening devices to monitor activities inside the home.
Using the devices, he said, the agents saw multiple trips by Mr. Raj, Mr. Woo and Mr. Valenzuela through the tunnel carrying hockey and garbage bags, which were loaded into vans on the U.S. side and driven further south for delivery.
In one instance, he said, bags were loaded into a sport utility vehicle with Utah plates, which was delivered to a woman with a small child at a nearby mall. The Washington State Patrol later stopped the car in Ellensburg, Wash., and discovered 93 pounds of marijuana.
“The presence of a tunnel on our northern border threatens the security of countries, whether it is used to smuggle drugs, contraband or even terrorists,” said U.S. Attorney John McKay in Seattle, whose office will prosecute the case. “Shutting it down, just as it is completed, is a huge blow to these criminals.”
Inspector Pat Fogarty, who heads Canada’s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, described the tunnel as “ambitious, sophisticated and an example of the lengths individuals and criminal organizations will go to for illegal profits,” adding that the tunnel will be destroyed.
Canadian officials have said that 3.8 million pounds of marijuana are produced annually in British Columbia and that about 50 percent of it is smuggled to the United States. The crop includes a substantial amount of a potent hydroponically grown Canadian marijuana known as “BC bud,” which sells for up to $6,000 a pound, 10 times the price of Mexican marijuana.
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