Smuggling tunnels are

secret passage Secret passages, also commonly referred to as hidden passages or secret tunnels, are hidden routes used for stealthy travel, escape, or movement of people and goods. They are sometimes inside buildings leading to secret rooms. Others allow peop ...

s used for the

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are variou ...

goods In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...

and

people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

. The term is also used where the tunnels are built in response to a

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...

Europe

Bosnia

The

Sarajevo Tunnel The Sarajevo Tunnel ( Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: Sarajevski tunel / Сарајевски тунел), also known as Tunel spasa (Тунел спаса, English: ''Tunnel of rescue'') and Tunnel of Hope, was a tunnel constructed between March ...

operated during the

Siege of Sarajevo The Siege of Sarajevo ( sh, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav ...

as a passage underneath the

no-man's land No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dump ...

of the city's (closed) airport, providing a vital smuggling link for the beleaguered city residents. Guns were smuggled into the city and people were smuggled out. After the

Bosnian War The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...

, the Sarajevo Tunnel Museum was built onto the historic private house whose cellar served as the entrance to Sarajevo Tunnel. ;In popular culture *It features in the British film ''

Welcome to Sarajevo ''Welcome to Sarajevo'' is a 1997 war drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book ''Natasha's Story'' by Michael Nicholson. The film stars Stephen Dillane, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, ...

'' (1997). *A similar tunnel in an unknown city, probably

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; names in other languages) is the capital and largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. Nearly 1,166,763 mi ...

, features in a dark

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

of conflict, '' Underground'' (1995).

Germany

More than 70 tunnels were used to smuggle people under the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the gover ...

between West Berlin and East Berlin.

Ukraine–Slovakia

A 700-meter smuggling tunnel with a

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struct ...

was revealed in July 2012 between

Uzhhorod Uzhhorod ( uk, У́жгород, , ; ) is a city and municipality on the river Uzh in western Ukraine, at the border with Slovakia and near the border with Hungary. The city is approximately equidistant from the Baltic, the Adriatic and the ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

, and

Vyšné Nemecké Vyšné Nemecké ( hu, Felsőnémeti, uk, Ви́шнє Німе́цьке) is a small village in the Sobrance District, Košice Region, right on the Slovak side of the main international road border with Ukraine, opposite the city of Uzhhorod ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

, at the border of

Schengen Area The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and ...

. The tunnel used professional mining and security technologies. It was used primarily for smuggling of cigarettes.

United Kingdom

Many villages on the southern coast of England have a local legend of a smugglers' tunnel, although the entrances to most of the actual smugglers' tunnels have been lost or bricked up. Some tunnel stories turn out to be plausible, such as the tunnel at Hayle in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...

, which seems to have been built specifically for smuggling. However, tunnels often double as a storm drain or some other functional channel, or else as an extension of a natural fissure in the rock as at Methleigh and Porthcothan, but tunnels and caches (both wholly excavated and formed by extending natural formations) are more commonplace where covert landings in areas with few sheltered beaches exposed smugglers to the attentions of the Revenue Men. While many sites are rudimentary, extensive workings have been found which show evidence of skillful excavation, strongly implying the assistance of tin miners.

Beith Beith is a small town in the Garnock Valley, North Ayrshire, Scotland approximately south-west of Glasgow. The town is situated on the crest of a hill and was known originally as the "''Hill o' Beith''" (hill of the birches) after its ''Court ...

North Ayrshire North Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Àir a Tuath, ) is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. The council area borders Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to the northeast, and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east a ...

was a notorious haunt of smugglers at one time, and legend has it that a tunnel ran from the town centre down to

Kilbirnie Loch Kilbirnie Loch (NS 330 543), is a freshwater Loch situated in the floodplain between Kilbirnie, Glengarnock and Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland. It runs south-west to north-east for almost , is about wide for the most part and has an area of ...

North America

US–Canada

In early 2005, a group of Canadian drug smugglers took up the idea, and constructed a tunnel between a

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.These ...

in Langley, British Columbia and the basement of a house in

Lynden, Washington Lynden is a city in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. It is located north of Bellingham and approximately south of the Canada–US border. The city is located along the Nooksack River and State Route 539. The population of Lynde ...

, which lay across the ditch marking the Canada–US border (the house on the Langley side was on 0 Avenue ("Zero Avenue"), which runs parallel to the border (and is the baseline of Langley's avenue-numbering system). They bought the two properties and began construction work. Authorities were alerted when a neighbor noticed the large-scale construction work being undertaken in the greenhouse. Inspection revealed that tons of construction material were entering, and piles of earth were coming out. It became known within a short time, by both American and Canadian border authorities, that a tunnel was being built. Video and audio devices were installed secretly by United States customs officials both at the termini and in the tunnel itself. On July 14, the tunnel having been completed, the first packs of

marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various t ...

began going through. Officials raided the home soon afterward and arrested the three men, who then appeared before court in Seattle. The tunnel was sealed and the roads above it were rebuilt, but the US house where the tunnel exited still exists.

US–Mexico

As of September 30, 2015, 183 illicit cross-border tunnels have been discovered in the United States since Fiscal Year 1990. On January 25, 2006, a tunnel was found on the US-Mexico border by a joint US Drug Enforcement Administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and US Border Patrol task force. The long tunnel runs from a warehouse near the Tijuana airport to a warehouse in San Diego. When discovered, it was devoid of people, but it did contain of marijuana. It was high and up to deep. The floor was made of cement, and the walls were exposed clay, with lights lining one side, a ventilation system to keep fresh air circulating, and a water drainage system to remove infiltrating ground water. Authorities said it was unclear how long the tunnel had been in operation. On January 30, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a Mexican citizen who was linked to the tunnel via the US warehouse, operated by V&F Distributors LLC. On the Friday before, January 27, immigration authorities reportedly received information that the Mexican

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...

behind the operation was threatening the lives of any agents involved with the construction or occupation of the tunnel. US Customs and Immigration, however, pledged to protect them as best they could. Authorities believe Tijuana's Arellano-Felix drug syndicate, or some other well-known drug cartel, was behind the building and operation of the tunnel. On November 26, 2010, a tunnel was discovered linking Tijuana to

Otay Mesa, San Diego Otay Mesa ( ) is a community in the southern section of the city of San Diego, just north of the U.S.–Mexico border. It is bordered by the Otay River Valley and the city of Chula Vista on the north; Interstate 805 and the neighborhoods of O ...

, California. In the same month another tunnel was discovered between these two cities. Both tunnels were discovered by a San Diego task force and are believed to be the work of Mexico's

Sinaloa cartel The Sinaloa Cartel ( es, link=no, Cártel de Sinaloa), also known as the CDS, the Guzmán-Loera Organization, the Pacific Cartel, the Federation and the Blood Alliance, is a large, international organized crime syndicate that specializes in il ...

. Over of cannabis was found and confiscated between the two. An analysis of US-Mexico smuggling tunnels, the US-Canada smuggling tunnel, and the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, Gaza Strip, was completed by Lichtenwald and Perri as part of a transnational analysis of smuggling tunnels. Lichtenwald and Perri outlined sources and methods for evaluating which tunnels are used by different populations in various parts of the world to smuggle contraband that does not threaten a nation's security, which tunnels that smuggle contraband that does threaten a nation's security, and hybrid tunnels that smuggle contraband that threaten a nation's security as well as that which does not. In December 2012, a tunnel 3 feet in diameter and 100 yards long, with electricity and ventilation, was found near the

Nogales, Arizona Nogales (English: or , ; ) is a city in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. The population was 20,837 at the 2010 census and estimated 20,103 in 2019. Nogales forms part of the larger Tucson–Nogales combined statistical area, with a total populatio ...

, port of entry. Since 1990, there have been almost 170 tunnels found leading into Mexico, mostly in Arizona and California. On February 14, 2014, another underground drug tunnel was discovered in Nogales. The tunnel spanned , or longer than 1.5 American football fields. The tunnel was being used to smuggle marijuana and other drugs into the US. Another of marijuana was seized after federal agents stopped a vehicle they saw driving away from the residence. Some of marijuana and of heroin were found inside the tunnel. Three people have been arrested in connection with the bust. On March 19, 2020, a tunnel connecting Tijuana to San Diego was discovered by the San Diego Tunnel Task Force. The tunnel extended 2,000 feet (610 m) and was outfitted with an underground

rail system Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

ventilation Ventilation may refer to: * Ventilation (physiology), the movement of air between the environment and the lungs via inhalation and exhalation ** Mechanical ventilation, in medicine, using artificial methods to assist breathing *** Ventilator, a m ...

, and

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayl ...

. Over 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Am ...

, 86 pounds (39 kilograms) of

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamp ...

, 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) of

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and bro ...

, 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of

and 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms) of

fentanyl Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is a very potent synthetic opioid used as a pain medication. Together with other drugs, fentanyl is used for anesthesia. It is also used illicitly as a recreational drug, sometimes mixed with heroin, cocain ...

were seized. In May 2022, a tunnel connecting Tijuana to San Diego was discovered. The tunnel extended "six football fields" in length and was outfitted with an underground rail system, ventilation, and an electricity supply. Over 1,762lb (799kg) of cocaine, 165lb (75kg) of meth and 3.5lb (1.6kg) of heroin were seized.

Asia

India-Pakistan

Pakistan has been using Tunnels to infiltrate terrorists and smuggle weapons, explosives, contrabands to India. These terrorists belong to globally sanctioned proscribed organizations like

LeT Let or LET may refer to: Sports * Let serve, when the served object in certain racket sports hits the net and lands in the correct service court, such as; ** Let (badminton) ** Let (pickleball) ** Let (tennis) * Ladies European Tour, the lad ...

, JeM and

Hizbul Mujahideen Hizbul Mujahideen, also spelled Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ( ar, حزب المجاھدین, ), is an Islamism, Islamist militant organization operating in the Kashmir region. Its goal is to separate Kashmir Valley, Kashmir from India and merge it with ...

. Since 1997, a total of 12 tunnels (5 in Punjab frontier and 7 in Jammu frontier) have been discovered by BSF under the India-Pakistan Border, with latest being discovered in 2021. The Tunnel discovered in 2021 was also used by Mohammad Umar Farooq, the Main planner of

2019 Pulwama attack The 2019 Pulwama attack occurred on 14 February 2019, when a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethapora in the Pulwama distric ...

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. These tunnels are constructed by Engineer Wing of

Pakistan Rangers The Pakistan Rangers ( ur, ) are a paramilitary federal law enforcement organization in Pakistan, operating under the authority of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan. Their primary purpose is to secure and defend sites of significance in th ...

and

Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers "The Moving Spirit" , colors = , colors_label = Colours , march = , mascot = , equipment = , equipment_label = , ...

India-Bangladesh

Throughout the years,

Border Security Force The Border Security Force (BSF) is India's border guarding organisation on its border with Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is one of the seven Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) of India, and was raised in the wake of the 1965 war on 1 December 1 ...

has discovered several smuggling tunnels linking India with Bangladesh, these tunnels are used by Bangladeshi criminals to smuggle cattle, contraband and illegal immigrants.

North Korea-South Korea

As of 1990, as many as four tunnels linking North Korea to South Korea have been discovered by South Korean authorities under the Demilitarized Zone. It is believed that the tunnels were planned as a military invasion route or to facilitate intelligence operations as opposed to smuggling controlled items. It is believed that there may be up to 20 tunnels crossing the border, however neither government has acknowledged the discovery or existence other than the four known tunnels. The third tunnel is now open to South Korean visitors as a tourist site, however the tunnel has been permanantly blocked with three concrete barriers at the Military Demarcation Line between North and South Korea. It can be accessed via a second tunnel dug by South Korean authorities in 1978 to intercept the then yet incomplete North Korean tunnel. The North Korean portion was 1,635 metres (1.0 mile) long, with a maximum height of 1.95 m (6 ft 5 in), 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) wide, and at a depth of 73 m (240 ft) below ground. It has been estimated that up to 30,000 men per hour could travel through the tunnel with light weaponry.

Middle East

The Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels connect

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

and the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

, bypassing the

Egypt–Gaza barrier The Egypt–Gaza barrier is a steel border barrier constructed by Egypt along its 14 kilometres (7.5 miles) border with the Gaza Strip. The Rafah border crossing is the only border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. In December 2009, ...

built by Israel along the international border established by the

Egypt–Israel peace treaty The Egypt–Israel peace treaty ( ar, معاهدة السلام المصرية الإسرائيلية, Mu`āhadat as-Salām al-Misrīyah al-'Isrā'īlīyah; he, הסכם השלום בין ישראל למצרים, ''Heskem HaShalom Bein Yisrael ...

. The tunnels pass under the Philadelphi corridor, an area specified in the

Oslo accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;

as being under Israeli military control, in order to secure the border with Egypt.