Smuggling tunnel
[1] A 700-meter smuggling tunnel with a narrow gauge railway was revealed in July 2012 between Uzhhorod, Ukraine, and Vyšné Nemecké, Slovakia, at the border of Schengen Area.
However, tunnels often double as a storm drain or some other functional channel, or else as an extension of a natural fissure in the rock as at Methleigh and Porthcothan,[3] but tunnels and caches (both wholly excavated and formed by extending natural formations) are more commonplace where covert landings in areas with few sheltered beaches exposed smugglers to the attentions of the Revenue Men.
While many sites are rudimentary, extensive workings have been found which show evidence of skillful excavation, strongly implying the assistance of tin miners.
[citation needed] Beith in North Ayrshire was a notorious haunt of smugglers at one time, and legend has it that a tunnel ran from the town centre down to Kilbirnie Loch.
[citation needed] In early 2005, a group of Canadian drug smugglers took up the idea, and constructed a tunnel between a greenhouse in Langley, British Columbia and the basement of a house in Lynden, Washington, which lay across the ditch marking the Canada–US border.
Video and audio devices were installed secretly by United States customs officials both at the termini and in the tunnel itself.
On January 30, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a Mexican citizen who was linked to the tunnel via the US warehouse, operated by V&F Distributors LLC.
On the Friday before, January 27, immigration authorities reportedly received information that the Mexican cartel behind the operation was threatening the lives of any agents involved with the construction or occupation of the tunnel.
Both tunnels were discovered by a San Diego task force and are believed to be the work of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.
In December 2012, a tunnel 3 feet in diameter and 100 yards long, with electricity and ventilation, was found near the Nogales, Arizona, port of entry.
The tunnel extended "six football fields" in length and was outfitted with an underground rail system, ventilation, and an electricity supply.
[17] The Tunnel discovered in 2021 was also used by Mohammad Umar Farooq, the Main planner of 2019 Pulwama attack in Jammu and Kashmir.
It is believed that the tunnels were planned as a military invasion route or to facilitate intelligence operations as opposed to smuggling controlled items.
The tunnels pass under the Philadelphi corridor, an area specified in the Oslo accords as being under Israeli military control, in order to secure the border with Egypt.
