The United States Border Patrol closed on Thursday one of the tunnels found earlier this year in Nogales, Arizona, tunnels which had been used to smuggle drugs and weapons between Mexico and the United States.
Border Patrol agents used about 6 trucks filled with cement to seal the tunnel and render it inoperable, according to a report by EFE.
Kevin Hecht, Border Patrol supervisor and coordinator of the taskforce created to look for these tunnels, told the media that "Up until today, 173 tunnels have been discovered on the border between the United States and Mexico, 103 of those are in this city, under the supervision of the Nogales station, and total, 107 (the 103 plus another 4) are the responsibility of the Tucson sector".
The tunnel sealed on Thursday was one of the biggest discovered in the U.S. border in recent years and spanned from a residence in Nogales, Arizona to a public parking lot in front of the border wall.
According to reports from the Border Patrol, the tunnel had air ducts, was warm and humid, and when it was found by border patrol agents in January of this year, it was five feet short of reaching the surface.
Investigators believe that "the intention of this tunnel was to load vehicles with narcotics while they occupied one of the parking lots," according to El Nuevo Herald.
For many years, United States authorities worked together with Mexican police agencies to identify and dismantle these types of tunnels, which sometimes include sophisticated ventilation and infrastructure system, most of them dedicated to narcotics smuggling.
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