MEXICO DRUG SMUGGLERS TUNNEL UNDER BORDER

TECATE, Mexico (AP) -- It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a
plush, floral rug -- except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping
things cozy.

When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found
a secret tunnel to the United States.

Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along
the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling
drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement
officials on both sides of the border believe five of them started
operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that
heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the
underground route.

"We firmly believe there is a direct relation to our fortification of the
border," said Vincent Iglio, associate special agent in charge of the U.S.
Customs Service in Tucson, Ariz.

The passage behind the fireplace was discovered in February in an isolated
ranch house 20 miles east of the Mexican border town of Tecate. It had
rails on which smugglers would send cocaine on electric carts on a 300-yard
journey into the back of a staircase of a house in Tierra del Sol, Calif.

While it is believed to have gone undetected for 10 years, the other
recently discovered tunnels seem newer and more hastily dug.

One was still under construction when U.S. Border Patrol agents stumbled
upon it last month. Another, found in March, was built to bypass the
entrance of another tunnel that had already been discovered and sealed with
concrete.

The sealed tunnel, found in December, ran (85 feet) from a Nogales home in
Arizona to a concrete drainage canal in Mexico, where smugglers covered the
opening with a steel utility plate and resealed it with cement each time
they used it.

U.S. Customs authorities believe it had only been operating for three
months, in which time smugglers moved some $20 million worth of cocaine and
marijuana.

Another tunnel believed put into operation since Sept. 11 and found last
month ended in a parking lot near the U.S. Customs office in Nogales.

Authorities on both sides of the border are looking for more, but it's a
tough challenge.

"We can't go around doing seismic graphs, and we can't check without a
search warrant," said Donald Thornhill Jr., a Drug Enforcement
Administration spokesman in San Diego.

The most elaborate tunnel was found 12 years ago. It ran 100 yards from a
home in Agua Prieta, Mexico, to a warehouse in Douglas, Ariz. It had a rail
car and the initial stages of a track, and was accessed by using hydraulic
lifts that raised the entire floor of the home's game room.

Seven of the tunnels connected to storm drains linking the two cities named
Nogales on either side of the Arizona border.

Years ago, street children lived in the drains and charged smugglers for
the right to pass. Migrants also traipsed through the darkness until
several drowned in a rush of floodwaters and the U.S. Border Patrol started
monitoring the tunnels' openings on the U.S. side.

Thornhill doesn't believe terrorists might use the tunnels. "Drug
traffickers have them pretty well locked up," he said. "It's such a bonanza
for them. I don't think terrorists would be welcome."

The DEA suspects that the Arellano Felix gang, based in Tijuana, 65 miles
west of Tecate, moved as much as 10 tons of drugs into the United States --
part of it through the fireplace tunnel.

Surrounded by miles of desert, abutting a lonely stretch of border, the
house seemed a perfect location.

Using hydraulic tools, builders burrowed north, passing 20 feet under the
metal border wall. They removed enough dirt to fill as many as 70 dump
trucks, bagging it and quietly disposing of it, according to the DEA.

They installed lights and strung plastic piping along the wall for
ventilation. The dirt walls and roof were shored up with wooden beams.

Standing guard at its opening, a Mexican federal police officer peered in
with a reporter.

"What's it like over there?" he asked. "I heard the United States is really
nice. I would like to go someday, but I heard it's really hard to get in."