Three men charged in Canadian drug tunnel investigation

A "professionally constructed" tunnel leading nearly 100 yards from an abandoned house in the Northwest Washington town of Lynden to a greenhouse just beyond the U.S.-Canadian border was shut down yesterday before it could be used.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said this morning it was newly constructed and designed for drug trafficking. Three Canadian men have been charged in connection with construction of the tunnel as well as drug trafficking.

The tunnel, about five minutes outside downtown Lynden, Whatcom County, had been monitored by federal authorities for several months, authorities said. He said the tunnel passed under two roads and appeared to be skillfully built.

"It wasn't built by a teenager with scrap wood from nearby homes," said a source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A woman who lives across the street from the abandoned property in the 100 block of Boundary Road said federal agents stopped her when she tried to drive home yesterday. She said three people were arrested in the abandoned home; Border Patrol agents confirmed the arrests.

"It blows me away," said Ruthie Steinfort. "We're right next to the border station."

Steinfort said her rural neighborhood, which is about a two-minute walk from the border, is constantly teeming with Border Patrol agents searching for people crossing illegally.

According to a news release by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, Francis Devandra Raj, 30, Timothy Woo, 34, and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, all of Surrey, B.C., were charged today with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, and conspiracy to import marijuana.

Raj owns the property on the Canadian side of the border where the entrance to the tunnel is hidden under a Quonset hut, according to the news release. On the U.S. side, the tunnel terminates beneath the living room floor of a home located at 151 E. Boundary Road, in Lynden, Washington. Construction of the tunnel was completed early this month.

Using a delayed notice search warrant, agents entered the home on July 2 to examine the tunnel. A short time later a U.S. District Court judge authorized the installation of cameras and listening devices in the home to monitor activities in the home. Using these devices, agents from various federal, state and local law enforcement authorities saw the three suspects carrying large hockey bags or garbage bags through the tunnel.

The bags were loaded into a van on the U.S. side and then driven south. In one instance the hockey bags and garbage bags were loaded at the house into an SUV with Utah plates. The conspirators then delivered the car to a woman with a small child at Bellis Fair Mall. The Washington State Patrol stopped the car loaded with 93 pounds of marijuana in Ellensburg.

On July 16, two additional people were arrested in separate incidents for transporting marijuana that had come through the tunnel, said Greg Gassett, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Seattle.

One was a Twin Falls, Idaho, woman who authorities say had 93 pounds of marijuana in her vehicle when she was stopped in Ellensburg. A Renton man pulled over by the Washington State Patrol in Enumclaw with 110 pounds of marijuana was also arrested. The names of the two people were not released today.

Though the tunnel had been under construction for the past several months, Steinfort said she never heard any noise coming from the rundown property. She said she thought the home was sold about two years ago to an Eastern Washington couple, but she never saw anyone set foot on the property.

"They never mow the lawn, and everything is deteriorating over there," Steinfort said.

Steinfort said federal agents spent the past several weeks in a nearby motor home watching the abandoned property. She said the woods near her home and the neighborhood were crawling with police yesterday.

Such tunnels aren't uncommon in U.S. border towns.

In March, U.S. officials found a tunnel that had been dug from a middle-class San Diego-area neighborhood to an upscale residence in Mexico. Investigators called the 200-yard-long tunnel the most sophisticated they have seen along the California-Mexico border.

Investigators used a machine that can "see" underground, a video-equipped robot, a drug-sniffing dog and an air horn to find it.

That tunnel was 3 feet wide and 5 feet high with a concrete floor. It had wood-beam supports, fiberglass walls, ventilation, video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294

Seattle Times staff reporter Ari Bloomekatz, The Associated Press and Seattle Times news partner KING TV contributed to this article. Sullivan reported from Seattle and Bloomekatz reported from the Lynden area.