Breaking Bad? Arizona KFC store concealed drug-smuggling tunnel running 600 feet into Mexico
The tunnel confirmed another unspoken rule on America’s southwest border: what can’t go up must go down. Or rather, what can’t go over the wall can and will go under it
The hole in the tile of the former Kentucky Fried Chicken was small: eight inches in diameter, barely large enough to fit a 15-piece family bucket. It could have easily been overlooked as just another deteriorating aspect of an abandoned fast-food restaurant, had authorities not known better.
After all, this wasn’t just any vacant KFC but one in San Luis, Arizona, situated some 200 yards north of the US-Mexico border. A person going through the old drive-through window might have caught glimpses of the 20-foot-tall border fence separating San Luis from Mexico in his rear-view mirror.
Moreover, on August 13, local police had arrested the building’s owner, Ivan Lopez, at a traffic stop where he was found with more than 325 pounds of illicit drugs. Records revealed Lopez had bought the former KFC in April, paying US$390,000 – all cash – for the abandoned restaurant. Soon, authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained a search warrant and surrounded the building.
Once inside, they knew just where to look: Down at the ground. This was no fried chicken joint any more.
Their suspicions were nearly confirmed with the discovery of the eight-inch opening, along a wall in the former restaurant’s rear kitchen area. Agents chipped away at its sides and, as the concrete gave way, the hole became a shaft. One person shimmied down and turned on a flashlight, scanning the surroundings. Hundreds of wooden two-by-four planks lined the walls, shoring up a veritable walkway that led due south. It was an underground tunnel to Mexico.