Brooklyn jurors in the El Chapo trial were given an inside look Wednesday into a clandestine tunnel once used to smuggle 1 ton of “nearly pure” cocaine from Mexico to the US.
Federal prosecutors revealed photos of the wrapped coke bricks and secret underpass while their first witness — a former special agent with US Customs — explained how the underground passage linked a home in Agua Prieta, Mexico, with a building in Douglas, Ariz. — about “two blocks” from a US Customs site.
The agent, Carlos Salazar, said he discovered the 40- to 50-foot tube in May 1990 thanks to a tip from an informant who was paid $500. Salazar had also closely tracked a truck seen leaving the Douglas building and eventually led authorities to find 1 ton of cocaine at another location.
Authorities unearthed the opening of the tunnel on the US side by jack-hammering through a concrete floor.
The tube, which was outfitted with lights, was no more than 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 3 to 4 feet wide — enough room for someone the size of 5-feet, 6-inch accused kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to stand nearly upright and smugglers to use little push carts to ferry kilos of cocaine between locations. The tunnel also was outfitted with a sump pump to keep water from pooling inside.
On the Mexican side, it was accessed from under a pool table in the home that lifted with a sophisticated hydraulics system, the same kind used in mechanic shops, Salazar said.
The load of cocaine that was recovered was packaged in bricks stamped with the labels “MR,” “OSOP” and “Yahama.”
“Those are the actual bricks or the kilo wrappings of coke that we discovered,” Salazar testified.
The drugs were tested by retired Drug Enforcement Administration chemist Robert Arnold, who said they came back as “nearly pure cocaine.”
“I found the cocaine was 95 percent” pure, Arnold testified.
It’s not yet clear how the secret tunnel is connected to Guzman, who had allegedly just been tapped the year before to lead the Sinaloa cartel’s Pacific Coast operations with his right-hand man, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
Zambada’s brother, Jesus Reynaldo Zambata – one of the prosecution’s many cooperating witnesses – is expected to testify against Guzman later Wednesday.
