SAN DIEGO - With tougher drug enforcement above ground, authorities say traffickers along the U.S.-Mexican border were forced to dig deep below ground instead.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Four drug smuggling tunnels equipped with lighting and ventilation — including one with a railcar system — have been discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border in less than a week, the latest signs that cartels are building sophisticated passages to escape heightened detection above ground.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, California — Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

WASHINGTON - Law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 2,200 people in a 22-month investigation targeting Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the United States, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

About 4.3 percent of Maricopa County jail inmates randomly tested for drug use last year tested positive, according to the sheriff’s office. But the numbers have steadily decreased since random testing began in the mid-1990s.

Parents have it rough these days.

Authorities say they have busted up a drug trafficking cell in Tempe that, in adddition to being linked to the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico, has received shipments of drugs from South and Central America, only to have domestic traffickers distribute the drugs to all corners of the nation.

NEW YORK - A Taliban-linked drug lord who allegedly sought to poison U.S. streets with millions of dollars of heroin in a deadly "American jihad" has become the first person extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges, officials said Monday.

Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., is lashing out at Gov. Janet Napolitano’s plan to seek federal disaster relief for illegal immigration, suggesting she should send the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border instead.

Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., is lashing out at Gov. Janet Napolitano’s plan to seek federal disaster relief for illegal immigration, suggesting she should send the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border instead.

Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., is lashing out at Gov. Janet Napolitano’s plan to seek federal disaster relief for illegal immigration, suggesting she should send the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border instead.

WASHINGTON - If cornered by the West over its nuclear program, Iran could direct Hezbollah to enlist its widespread international support network to aid in terrorist attacks, intelligence officials say.

TEMPE

Two Scottsdale residents named in a federal indictment Thursday involving a fraudulent drug distribution scheme could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine each if convicted of the offenses.

NOGALES - U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agents executing simultaneous raids discovered a recently completed smuggling tunnel linking the two countries, officials said Friday.

Planning a trip to Mexico? Forget it.

Bill Richardson: The Legislature is once again asleep at the switch that controls the flow of organized crime in and out of Arizona.

Drugstore logbooks did little more than collect dust during the first year of East Valley rules that require pharmacists to collect personal information when selling Sudafed and other cold medicines used to brew methamphetamine. In Scottsdale and Chandler, police have never inspected the locally mandated store records in search of meth cooks.

NOGALES - U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agents discovered a recently completed smuggling tunnel linking the two countries in simultaneous raids late Thursday, officials said.

June 29, 2004