Authorities charged four suspects on June 1 with felony drug distribution violations after finding a hidden tunnel used by drug runners inside a retail store in San Diego County that led into Tijuana, Mexico.

Investigators also seized more than a ton of cocaine worth about $45 million in connection with the subterranean tunnel, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Homeland Security’s Tunnel Task Force in charge of the operation.

“For these defendants, it wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. It was lights and sirens,” said U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon.

Federal agents with the tunnel task force started surveilling a Buy 4 Less warehouse on the 2400 block of Roll Drive in San Diego in late December 2025 after they became alerted to suspicious activity at the location, according to prosecutors.

A group of seven or eight “employees” at the Buy 4 Less showed up regularly at the store, but very few customers were seen coming in and out of the location, investigators said.

The supposed employees were seen taking multiple suitcases out of the store and into vehicles or walking the suitcases, which appeared to be empty, across the border into Mexico, according to the court complaint.

Investigators say that on May 29, a man loaded three large, heavy items into a white van that left the warehouse and parked on a street near a mechanic shop. Another man on a bicycle was seen looking around and into parked cars, allegedly conducting counter-surveillance for the van, investigators said.

Federal agents watched as people removed three deep freezers from the first van and placed them into the bed of another truck, then load the deep freezers with packages, according to court documents.

After the vans were loaded onto a truck, the truck left and parked a short distance away. Another man took the truck keys and drove away.

San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies with a K9 police dog stopped the truck and were alerted to the presence of a controlled substance by the canine officer.

After the traffic stop, the agents watching the warehouse saw two other men take heavy boxes out of the Buy 4 Less and load them onto a second truck, which was then driven away. Another sheriff’s deputy with a police canine stopped the second truck.

The traffic stops led federal agents to discover 851 packages of cocaine with a combined weight of more than 1 ton inside the two trucks and van.

The subterranean passageway, stretching from Tijuana, Mexico, to the purported retail store near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry known as “Buy 4 Less,” shown in this photo, is estimated to be about 1,933 feet long, 55 feet deep, and 4.5 feet in height, with a ventilation system and electricity. (U.S. Department of Justice)

The drug seizures also allowed federal investigators to obtain a signed judicial warrant to search the Buy 4 Less, where they found the exit point of the subterranean tunnel hidden beneath the floor of a storage room inside the store, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego.

The tunnel is about 55 feet deep and extends about 1,064 feet from the Buy 4 Less to the U.S.–Mexico border. Agents estimate it continues another 800 feet to another entry point in Mexico.

The tunnel was accessed using a sophisticated hydraulic lift and was equipped with ventilation and electricity, and was up to 4.5 feet tall in some areas, according to investigators.

Trucks coming from Mexico enter the United States at an inspection station after crossing the border in Otay Mesa, Calif., on April 1, 2025. (Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images)

The drug bust and tunnel discovery are expected to impact the cartel’s drug pipeline into California.

“This investigation and seizure represent a significant blow to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego Kevin Murphy.

Charged in the case were Gregorio Epifanio Hernandez Lopez, 29, of San Diego; Brandon Escalante Sandoval, 26, of Mexico; Jose Jimenez, 32, of San Diego; and Antonio Cortez, 18, of Mexico.

Hernandez Lopez is charged with conspiracy to use a cross-border tunnel and conspiracy to import controlled substances. All defendants are charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said the tunnel is one of 99 discovered in the Southern District of California since 1993 and the first since 2022.