More than 18 months after authorities uncovered an underground tunnel beneath the U.S.-Mexico border, one of the central figures tied to the smuggling scheme has admitted guilt in federal court, pleading to a conspiracy charge for bringing migrants into the United States.
Federal prosecutors said Luis Carlos Davalos-Lopez, a Mexican smuggler, helped oversee a cross-border operation that charged migrants up to $30,000 for entry into the U.S. The passageway stretched from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, into El Paso, Texas, where it linked with the city’s public storm drain system. When officials announced the discovery, they said the tunnel was allegedly constructed by the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, known as CJNG, and extended about 1,000 feet on the Mexican side of the border.
After reaching El Paso’s storm drain network, migrants were guided through the underground system to designated exit locations. One of those exits involved a box truck that had been altered and parked over a manhole, allowing migrants to climb straight from the drain into the vehicle through a trap door.
Justice Department
Investigators said wiretaps and surveillance helped tie the migrant-smuggling operation to other suspected criminal activity, including the trafficking of drugs and firearms.
According to prosecutors, intercepted phone calls captured Davalos-Lopez discussing how the Juárez-to-El Paso tunnel worked, the movement of migrants through the passage, fees reaching tens of thousands of dollars and other operational details.
The conspiracy count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The plea marks a significant development in a case first exposed in January 2025 and viewed as an early test of the Trump administration’s push to treat cartel-linked smuggling through a counterterrorism lens.
“The defendants in this case were key figures in a criminal enterprise that has had a heavy, detrimental impact on both sides of the border, smuggling drugs and illegal aliens into the U.S. while also trafficking firearms into Mexico, firearms which were then used to further facilitate the movement of drugs and illegal aliens into this country,” U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons for the Western District of Texas said in a statement. “The convictions secured in this case are just another nail in the coffin for these transnational criminal organizations and foreign terrorist organizations.”
Davalos-Lopez did not plead guilty to a terrorism-related charge. However, his associate, Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez, did just last month, admitting to conspiracy to provide material support to CJNG. Navarro-Sanchez also faced drug, firearms-trafficking and alien-smuggling charges.
Still, the case underscores a shift in how the United States has begun prosecuting cartels, framing drug, gun and human smuggling crimes as terrorism crimes. The Trump administration has designated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, empowering prosecutors to pursue harsher charges for conduct that was previously considered organized crime.
