Five pulled from pipe used as border tunnel

By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

October 11, 2006

The cross-border passageway discovered yesterday near the Otay Mesa port of entry started in a Mexican drainage system and then tapped into a concrete pipe that had once been used to deliver liquefied oxygen into the United States.

Border Patrol agents said smugglers often try to tap into pipes to avoid the cost of building a tunnel, but it usually isn't big news – unless, as in this case, someone gets stuck.

“It has always been a strategy to try and find a chink in the armor,” said James Jacques, a Border Patrol spokesman.

Seven people in or near the passageway were captured while trying to make the crossing, including a man who got jammed inside and had to be freed by the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Seven others are believed to have slipped back to Mexico.