Border Patrol agents found a tunnel leading from Mexico to Arizona, the third this fiscal year, which puts 2016 en route to pass the 2011 record.
The tunnel originates in a Nogales cemetery in Senora, Mexico, and runs to Nogales, Ariz., near the DeConcini Port of Entry, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Tuesday.
U.S. and Mexican authorities partnered for a bi-national inspection of a drainage system beneath Nogales on Friday. Mexican officials had become suspicious of the system after finding a hole in the ground in the cemetery that may have been used for smuggling drugs, guns or people.
Officials determined the unfinished tunnel was five feet deep and stretched under the international border and 46 feet into the U.S. It had a circumference of 20 inches. Inside the tunnel were digging tools, a gas-powered generator and a small swamp pooler likely used for ventilation.
The tunnel, the third discovered since October, may have been built to replace others that authorities uncovered in the region earlier this year. Border agents have reported 120 international tunnels since 1990 just in the Tucson region, but the average number found per year over the last decade has dropped dramatically since the 1990s.
No one has been arrested in connection to the discovery.