Cocaine smuggler in scuba gear caught after popping out of underwater tunnel

He had 25 airtight packages containing 55 pounds of cocaine.

Shortly before 10:30 p.m. April 25, U.S. Border Patrol agents patrolling about seven miles east of the Calexico West Port of Entry received information from a remote video-surveillance operator that there was a unknown person alongside the All-American Canal.

Evelio Padilla-Zepeda was attempting to enter the United States via a tunnel from Mexico that was partially submerged in water, the LA Times reports.

Earlier this year, US Border Patrol agents foiled a narcotics smuggling attemptand subsequently discovered a sophisticated, underwater, cross-border tunnel.

Padilla-Zepeda was wearing a wetsuit and had scuba tanks when he was arrested.

Evelio Padilla, a Honduran national, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to drug charges after California border patrol agents captured him with high-tech scuba diving gear near a canal, according to the Associated Press. Among the gear were two re-breather tanks, which capture a diver’s exhaled breath, preventing tell-tale bubbles.

This partly-underwater tunnel was used by smugglers.

Shortly afterwards, agents discovered a 150ft tunnel which led between a house in Mexicali, Mexico, and opened in the water of the canal.

Padilla-Zepeda, who had been living in Mexicali, was told he would be helping get people across the border – but was later notified that he’d be smuggling drugs instead after he jumped a fence, the criminal complaint said. He said he went along with the job because there was no other option. “The ingenuity of the smugglers is matched only by our determination to thwart it”, Laura Duffy, an American lawyer, said in a statement, according to Fox News Latino.

His sentencing is set to take place in December. Court records did not reveal who Padilla may have been working for, or if more arrests would be made.