'Narco Tunnel' Sinkhole in Mexico Opens up and Swallows a Young Man Sleeping on Couch

A sinkhole, appearing over a narco tunnel, has swallowed a young man sleeping on a couch early Tuesday morning in Mexico's Sinaloa state.

According to Borderland Beat, the sinkhole inside a house in the Juntas de Humaya neighborhood in Culiacan city opened up due to a narco tunnel that crosses several streets in the area that was discovered in 2011.

The outlet reported that the young man's relatives were awakened by a loud noise at around 4 a.m. When they turned on the light to see what happened, they saw the young man at the bottom of the sinkhole.

Authorities said the young man fell to a depth of between two and a half meters and three meters. He reportedly suffered injuries and bruises in different parts of his body.

The neighbors, who also heard the loud noise, believed that the sinkhole was caused by the collapse of one of the many "narco tunnels" in the area, Riodoce reported.

According to reports, criminals managed to escape in 2011 using a narco tunnel located about 50 meters from the accident site. At the time, the army conducted an operation to secure the area, where they seized several illegal items stored in black bags.

Tuesday's opening of the sinkhole resulted in a series of complaints from other neighbors, who said that their homes also have damages caused by this same problem.

They noted that a big mango tree was already "swallowed" by a sinkhole about two years ago. Another home can also be seen with cracks in the ground and walls.

Reports said authorities are expected to look into this case and will also conduct a thorough soil study to verify whether the houses are still suitable for continued habitation.

Narco Tunnels Link to El Chapo and His Sinaloa Cartel

In May last year, Mexican authorities discovered a 650-foot tunnel created by Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera. The said narco tunnel was across the street from a National Guard base in Tijuana, Mexico.

Authorities believed that the narco tunnel was planned to connect Tijuana to the San Diego underpass discovered in 2019, which was a part of a tunnel network built by the now-jailed El Chapo.

Reports said there are at least 13,300 narco tunnels in Mexico. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), most of these tunnels were established in areas where the Sinaloa Cartel is doing its operations.

In March 2021, U.S. agents found $30 million worth of drugs in a 600 meters tunnel in San Diego. The tunnel's discovery came two months after the agents found a different tunnel in January.

The tunnel discovered in January was reportedly the longest narco tunnel ever found on the U.S.-Mexico border as it stretched more than three-quarters of a mile from an industrial building in Tijuana into San Diego.

Builder of El Chapo and Sinaloa Cartel Narco Tunnels Arrested

Jose Sanchez Villalobos, the builder of the narco tunnels linking Tijuana on the Mexican side and San Diego on the U.S. side, was sentenced to 10 years and one month in custody for a drug distribution conspiracy in a San Diego federal court in July 2021.

Villalobos, also one of the Sinaloa Cartel's high-level managers, pleaded guilty in December 2020 to planning, financing, and supervising the construction of several cross-border tunnels from 2010 to 2012.

He also pleaded guilty in overseeing the Sinaloa cartel's operation as smuggling conduits. He was reportedly responsible for transporting drugs in Baja, California, and Jalisco in Mexico and managing marijuana transport from southern Mexico to northern Mexico.

Villalobos was also reported to have overseen two tunnels found in the San Diego area built to transport Sinaloa Cartel drugs. He was also said to have been responsible for deciding who could use the said tunnels for a fee.

Villalobos was arrested in Mexico in 2012 and spent about eight years in custody there. He then spent another year and a half in San Diego after being extradited to the U.S to face charges. He seemed to have already served most of his prison term.

The narco tunnels became a huge part of El Chapo's operation for smuggling and escaping from prisons. El Chapo has earned the reputation of being the "Lord of the Tunnels" for his preference to use the underground.

He was compared to early Juarez Cartel boss Amado Carillo Fuentes, who was dubbed as "Lord of the Skies." Carillo Fuentes was known to transport drugs by using planes.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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