Grand Jury Charges Engineer in $45 Million Border Tunnel Case

A federal grand jury in San Diego on Thursday charged a 60-year-old Mexican engineer in a case involving more than a ton of cocaine and a tunnel built beneath the California border.

The indictment names Luis Manuel Hernandez Victoria, a Guadalajara resident known as El Ingeniero, as the designer and builder of the passage. Mexican authorities arrested him Oct. 15 in the state of Jalisco. Federal prosecutors filed the charges Thursday. The tunnel itself was found May 29 inside a retail store near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego.

Hernandez Victoria is accused of conspiracy to construct or finance a cross-border tunnel, conspiracy to use such a tunnel to import controlled substances, conspiracy to import controlled substances, and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The Trump administration designated the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación as a foreign terrorist organization last year.

The passage runs from Tijuana to a store called Buy 4 Less. Its dimensions run to 1,933 feet in length, 55 feet in depth, and 4.5 feet in height, and the walls are equipped with electricity, rail, and ventilation systems, according to the Department of Justice. More than 1 ton of cocaine, valued at over $45 million, was seized during the discovery, officials said.

Hernandez Victoria is the seventh person charged in this case. Weapons and narcotics were seized during his arrest, the Justice Department said. The investigation remains open, with Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Border Patrol, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the California Department of Justice, and the FBI listed as participating agencies.