One small town in Arizona was rocked to its core when a high-speed car chase and a mysterious underground tunnel was discovered, coincidentally, at the same time...
San Luis, Arizona
Officers Erin Gotz and Manuel Ramirez were patrolling the outskirts of San Luis, Arizona on an average morning. The weather was hot, the air was dry, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a white Ford F-150 pulled out in front of them to stop at a traffic light. The police officers did not think anything of this until officer Ramirez remarked that the truck’s license plate looked like it had been screwed in improperly.
Red Alert
Nothing was out of the ordinary here, and when the light turned green, the officers turned on their flashers to alert the man in the truck that he was being pulled over. This was a routine procedure and the officers did not even plan on ticketing the driver, but something was a little out of the ordinary. Suddenly, the truck driver floored it and peeled out down the dusty strip. The officers turned on their siren and immediately called for backup, they didn’t know what they were getting into, but they knew that whatever was going on, they needed to stop it…
Set 'Em Up
For 30 miles, officer Gotz and Ramirez chased the truck, topping out at 120 mph on the longest stretch of their chase. Other members of the San Luis police force had set up spike strips long up on the road to stop the driver from exiting county lines. As the truck came barreling through, his tires exploded, causing the truck to slide and then flip once, twice, three times down the dusty road. As the vehicle slowly skidded to a stop upside down, a cloud of dust concealed the vehicle for a brief moment. Somehow, within the second of invisibility, the driver crawled out of his window and started sprinting into the desert.
Knock 'Em Down
The officers quickly chased the man down and tackled him. The driver was delirious and injured, a deep gash on his forehead bled into the sand, his left arm was broken and his shoulder dislocated from its socket. The man refused to reveal his identity to the authorities, the only belongings he had on him were a piece of paper with a smudged phone number on it, a rosary, and a photograph of two young girls...
Caught and Captured
Once the man was detained, the police were able to call a tow truck to flip the man’s overturned vehicle. When the officers got the truck upright, they slashed through the plastic cab cover to discover dozens of tightly wrapped packages, presumably full of drugs. The man was identified as Ivan Lopez, a long-time resident of the small town, and the father of two young twin daughters.
Check This Place Out
Meanwhile, a group of police officers investigated an abandoned building on the other side of town. They had received a call from an anonymous local that there had been kids running in and out of the building, and they were afraid that it was not safe for the children to be playing in. The anonymous caller also mentioned that there may be people squatting in the building as well. Reluctantly, the officers followed through with the caller’s pleas, and they ended up finding something inexplicably strange...
No Surprise
As the officers worked their way back into the building, they found nothing out of the ordinary. The property was a fully functional KFC several years before, but the owner of the franchise stopped paying his employees and essentially forced his own business to fail. As strange as that sounds, the police officers were not surprised. Businesses regularly turned over due to the low population of San Luis.
Nothing to See Here
Despite the years of inactivity, this restaurant was in surprisingly good shape. Officer Eric Montanez walked to the back of the kitchen, shined his flashlight into every freezer, fryer, nook, and cranny that he could see as a potential hiding place for a squatter. After confirming that there were no signs of other people being in the building, officer Montanez signaled to his fellow officers that it was time to leave. However, as they marched out of the building, officer Montanez stepped on a particular spot on the floor that gave way completely, causing his entire leg to plunge into a hole in the floor…
Watch Your Step
The other officers on the scene pulled officer Montanez out of the hole, he had twisted his ankle pretty badly, and the others were unsure whether it was sprained or not. The group of police officers called for medical assistance and sat on the floor around officer Montanez, elevating his leg and attempting to keep him calm. Several minutes later, an ambulance arrived at the scene to pick up the injured officer.
Hold the Phones
Once the EMTs got officer Montanez secured on a stretcher, they stabilized him and set him into the ambulance. One EMT stayed back to question another police officer, Marta Ewing, about what happened when officer Montanez fell through the floor. When retelling the story, officer Ewing pointed at the hole in the floor, drawing the EMTs gaze from her to the abnormality in the foundation of the building. The EMT froze, asked officer Ewing to call for backup, and ushered the other officers out of the building promptly. The EMT knew that this building’s foundation was on the ground level, and there was no way that officer Montanez’s foot went through two feet of hard sand, there was a hole in the ground beneath the building, and it must have been concealed for a reason…
A Likely Story
Back at the scene of the car accident, an ambulance had arrived to take Ivan Lopez to the hospital to treat his wounds, while more officers and the DEA arrived on the scene to inspect the unmarked bundles. When asked, Lopez said he did not know what was in the bags, and that he did not put them in his truck, nor did he know why they were there. “A likely story,” commented DEA officer Craig Donahue, he had seen far too many incidents like this to be patient with a man who would lie about the obvious.
Peering Down
Right as Ivan Lopez was being transported to the hospital, officer Eric Montanez was arriving, and multiple squad cars were pulling up to the abandoned KFC. A dozen officers flooded into the building to check out the unassuming 8-inch diameter hole that their coworker had fallen into. After shining their lights into the hole, the police officers could see that it was at least 10 feet deep, and it looked as if it was a tunnel that led past the length of the restaurant…
Structurally Sound
The police officers chipped away at the concrete that surrounded the hole and it gave way with ease. The concrete was fresh, barely a few hours old based on their observations. After shining their lights into the hole, the officers could see that the tunnel was paved with concrete and dozens of 2x4 boards bolstered the sides of the tunnel to keep it from collapsing. Whoever made this tunnel must have spent years constructing it, and had taken extreme care to make sure that it would not collapse inward.
Holding Him Accountable
Once Ivan Lopez made it to the hospital, he was sedated and cuffed to his gurney. His injured arm needed surgery immediately, so he was put under anesthesia and wheeled into the operating room. As soon as he was put under, officer Eric Montanez and DEA agent Craig Donahue arrived at the hospital as well. Donahue followed the ambulance in his squad car after the packages were seized from Lopez’s truck. Montanez was fine, his ankle was just swollen from being twisted, and as the nursing staff elevated his foot to place ice on it, they both received a radio call from the officers at the abandoned building…
Umberto Lopez
Officer Marta Ewing called from the scene to say that they had dug up the records for the abandoned KFC and found that Ivan Lopez was the owner of the building. In 2007, he bought the franchise and the building for $320,000, and he paid for it in cash. Lopez’s real name was Umberto Lopez, a former drug trafficker that was arrested in a sting in Mexico City but was later released for lack of incriminating evidence.
From City to States
The Mexican authorities lost contact with Lopez after several years of good behavior. The authorities figured that he had changed his life for the better since he had opened a KFC franchise in Mexico City, and was planning on purchasing one closer to the border where his family lived. The last recorded sighting of Umberto Lopez was when he crossed the border into America legally. He was headed in on business, and he said to border agents that he was going to look at a property to open a KFC on the American side…
Waiting for the Man
Meanwhile, Ivan Lopez was finishing in the operating room when the high ranking officers that were at both scenes arrived at the hospital. They awaited Lopez’s arrival in his hospital room post-operation, and while he was still under anesthesia, they handcuffed him to the bed and waited to surprise him when he woke up. After two hours of waiting, three cups of coffee each, and a vending machine run, Lopez finally woke up to face his crimes.
I Plead the Fifth
DEA agent Craig Donahue read Lopez his rights, during which he was dead silent. Lopez did not speak a single word. He did not deny his crimes, he did not show any emotion or remorse, he simply avoided any communication whatsoever. As soon as the officers finished arresting him, Lopez asked to speak to his lawyer on the phone, but since he was still recovering from his operation, the hospital staff advised otherwise. Unfortunately, this proved to be a grave mistake made by the police officers…
Locked Up
Since Lopez was technically medically intoxicated, DEA agent Craig Donahue’s arrest was deemed unlawful by Lopez’s team of lawyers. This reflected poorly on the team that accosted Lopez, but it did not nullify Lopez’s crimes. In the end, Lopez was charged with life in prison for endangering the lives of the police officers on the scene, evading arrest, reckless driving, and possessing over $300,000 worth of illegal narcotics with intent to sell.
Not an Isolated Incident
Although Lopez’s arrest was a great success and the officials that were on the scenes were commended highly for their quick thinking and decision making, this still did not solve the mystery of the tunnel under the KFC. Even though the officers had a pretty good idea as to why it was there, there was still no definite answer about who might have been using it as well…
Point A to Point B
For those who don’t know, this is a fairly common way to traffic drugs over borders all around the world. As border regulations got more strict over time, smugglers began getting a little creative with their methods of transportation. Since moving cargo over borders became progressively less successful, some individuals began digging underground to stay undetected…
Ghost of a Man
Presumably, this was Lopez’s directive when he had the tunnel built. That is, if he actually had the tunnel built for himself. After some interrogation and consultation from some anonymous police informants in cartels around the areas that Lopez was assumed to be trafficking drugs through, nobody knew of him. It was almost as if he did not exist, and the massive quantities of narcotics that he procured were of a different base chemical compound that is found in other cartel’s narcotics…
The City of Palaces
This fact led authorities to believe that Lopez was working for someone else, presumably in his former stomping grounds, Mexico City. Mexico City was formerly a hub for cartels in Mexico, but they moved out after the area got gentrified and more affluent individuals were able to hire police forces to drive them out. That being said, there is still cartel activity in Mexico City, but they all operate under the radar of the paid police force…
Low Hanging Fruit
Lopez was essentially trafficking drugs for a cartel that did not exist. This was terribly frustrating for the police forces working on his case since he had no history outside of his former arrest, of which the other individuals that were arrested are serving terms in prison. Nobody from his former crew was affiliated with the people that Lopez was working with at the time he was caught. Strangely, it seemed like Lopez was a low ranking individual, and quite frankly, the world may never know what his affiliation was, but they clearly had a lot of power and money...
Two for One
The tunnel that was constructed under Lopez’s KFC must have been extremely expensive to construct. It spanned over 2000 feet and went under the Mexican border to another KFC that was owned by Lopez as well. The only thing that prevented Lopez from being discovered by the authorities is that the KFC in Mexico was owned by Umberto Lopez, legally. The one in America had been illegally purchased but was legally operating under Ivan Lopez…
Not Acting Alone
The sides of the tunnel were being supported by hundreds of wooden planks that were not purchased from a store, so they had to have been sourced from an independent vendor that deals with operations like these. In addition to that, there were thousands of pounds worth of concrete that had been poured onto the floor to pave the way for traffickers. This would have taken dozens of hours worth of manpower, not to mention the thousands of dollars it would have cost to purchase the concrete on its own…
No Way to Tell
Regardless of who spent the money to construct the tunnel, there must have been many more hands at play than just Lopez alone. With that in mind, there is no way of determining any of this information without arresting or detecting anyone else that would have been active in Lopez’s operation. Before Lopez’s arrest was leaked to the public, the police staked out the tunnel for two weeks. Unfortunately, no other individuals came through the tunnel, so no further arrests were made…
Keeping it Underground
The police did not consider this a failed attempt at surveillance or interrogation though, they saw this as a major success for stopping an unknown drug trafficker. In addition to that, this was a breakthrough for discovering elaborate chains of connection between certain buildings and illegal transportation tunnels to funnel narcotics over the border. This was not the first discovery of an underground tunnel used to transport drugs, but this was actually the most expensive and largest underground bust on American soil since the early 2000s. The only one that rivals it is the bust that occurred in 2016…
Cause for Change
In August of 2016, a cartel member was arrested while he was exiting a nearly quarter-mile-long tunnel between California and Mexico. $50,000 worth of illegal narcotics and weapons were seized by the American police, and the leaders of the cartel were uncovered in the process. This event led to the American Border Control developing a program to detect these underground tunnels and address them before they complete their construction…
Prevetion Tactics
This particular event was a major breakthrough for the DEA and the police. Even though border towns are generally highly policed, events like these can fall under the radar until things get bad, like in this particular instance. Fortunately, the professionals on the scene thought appropriately and acted in the way they should have. This event will forever go down in history as the day that Ivan Lopez almost got away.