{"id":397928,"date":"2026-07-14T14:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397928\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:22:07","slug":"alleged-drug-trafficker-accused-in-cross-border-drug-tunnel-extradited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397928\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged drug trafficker accused in cross-border drug tunnel extradited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN DIEGO (CNS) &#8211; An alleged drug trafficker accused of transporting drugs into the United States through a cross-border tunnel connected to an Otay Mesa warehouse has been extradited to San Diego to face federal charges, it was announced Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Genaro Lopez, 54, described by the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office as &#8220;a powerful drug trafficker operating on both sides of the border,&#8221; allegedly used a 61-foot-deep, 1,744-foot-long tunnel to move drugs from Tijuana to Otay Mesa.<\/p>\n<p>The tunnel, which had reinforced walls, a rail system, electricity and ventilation, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.10news.com\/news\/local-news\/cross-border-drug-tunnel-discovered-stretching-from-tijuana-to-otay-mesa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was discovered in 2022<\/a> while investigators were surveilling a stash house Lopez allegedly operated out of National City.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office said Lopez also ran a stash house in Chula Vista where investigators found drugs, guns, and cash in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>But Lopez was not present during that search, as he had fled to Mexico, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Mexico in March.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez pleaded not guilty on Monday and was being held without bond.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026, City News Service, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (CNS) &#8211; An alleged drug trafficker accused of transporting drugs into the United States through a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[141008,159818,2457,28973,74,76,75,4931],"class_list":["post-397928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-drug-tunnel","tag-genaro-lopez","tag-mexico","tag-otay-mesa","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-tijuana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}