Feds likely eyeing ‘cover-ups’ to bust Mexican cartels along border: former DEA agent

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Former DEA agent says ‘underground cities’ used to smuggle illicit drugs into US

Michael Brown, a retired DEA special agent, discusses how the U.S. can fight the U.S.-Mexico drug trade.

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Mexican drug cartels have outfitted dozens of tunnels with rail and cart systems to whisk drugs beneath the U.S. border, posing a major challenge for the Trump administration as it works to curb the flow of illegal narcotics into the country.

The U.S. Drug and Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports that most illicit drugs in the U.S. are smuggled via vehicles at southern border entry points, but some enter through cross-border tunnels and subterranean passageways.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to stop the flow of illegal drugs in the U.S., introducing a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an estimated 107,941 people in the U.S. died from a drug-involved overdose in 2022.

Former DEA Senior Special Agent Michael Brown, who is the global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices, told Fox News Digital that the agency blows up the drug trafficking tunnels to make them impassable.

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ICE said one uncovered tunnel extends for more than 2,000 feet from a warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico, to a warehouse in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego. The tunnel has an average depth of 31 feet and is 3-feet wide along most of the passageway. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Brown said DEA and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) personnel must intensify their investigations into underground tunnels to discover “cover-ups” of the tunnels’ U.S. exits.

“Cover-ups” are seemingly normal storefronts or warehouses used to hide tunnel entrances and exits.

“They (the cartels) move hundreds of kilos out and build a warehouse over the tunnel and call it Joe’s Pizza shop or Jose’s mechanic shop,” Brown said. “It’s hard to identify that in Eagle Pass or Brownsville [in Texas].”

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The former DEA agent said that if properly managed, federal authorities can identify sources to reveal the tunnels’ locations and possible U.S. connections.

“Instead of trying to recruit an individual, say, ‘We’ll pay you a certain amount of money for information,'” Brown said.  

Law enforcement officers stand by the opening of a cross-border tunnel between Mexico’s Tijuana into the San Diego area on May 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat)

ICE said one tunnel extends the length of approximately eight football fields, from a warehouse in Tijuana to a building in San Diego’s Otay Mesa industrial park. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Since Trump’s return to the White House, border crossings have plummeted. There were 7,287 migrant encounters at the southern border in the first seven days (Jan. 20-26) after Trump’s inauguration by both Border Patrol between ports of entry and by the Office of Field Operations at ports of entry, with a daily average of 1,041 encounters a day.

That compares to 20,086 encounters in the final seven days of the Biden administration (Jan. 13-19) prior to Trump’s inauguration, averaging 2,869 encounters a day.

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“It’s amazing,” Brown said, speaking of the drop of border encounters. “The tunnels, though, represent a significant problem.”

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Subterranean passageways are not a new phenomenon. Brown pointed to the use of tunnels during the Vietnam War and, more recently, Hamas’ labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza. 

“Cartels have more money than Hamas, when you think about it. And, you know, it took hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money to build those tunnels,” he said. “Well, the cartels have billions of dollars.”

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He noted that tunnels are not simple underground holes but rather complicated “underground cities” complete with air ducts, office space, weapon stashes and railway tracks. 

Federal agents seized 4,400 pounds of illicit drugs from one tunnel’s exit in the U.S., ICE said. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Brown said he doesn’t believe the U.S. would go to the same length as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did when destroying the tunnels.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the IDF set its sights on dismantling the terrorist group’s web of tunnels. In one instance, the IDF said they pumped water into the tunnels and flooded them.

“The U.S. would never blow up a school under any circumstances,” he said. “But if we had a 9/11 every day like Israel, I think American attitudes would change.”

A binational operation dismantles a human trafficking tunnel in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Jan. 10, 2025. (Christian Torres/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the DEA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and HSI for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a U.S. writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. 

Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.