A married man had a lot of explaining to do when he was caught at his married mistress’ house, by her husband, next to a hole in the ground that turned out to be a tunnel leading back to his house.

Mexico is famous for its network of secret underground tunnels used by drug cartels to transport their precious but illegal cargos, but it seems the technique is sometimes also used for keeping romantic affairs secret. Antonio, a bricklayer from Villas del Prado 1, was having an affair with a married woman from the town’s Tijuana neighborhood. In order to make sure no one saw him visiting his secret lover, Pamela, the man started working on an underground tunnel that stretched all the way from his home to the woman’s.

Antonio used his experience in construction to dig a tight, but durable tunnel that crossed several streets from his home to that of her lover’s. Once it was finished, they were able to meet in secret, every time Pamela’s husband, Jorge, left to work. The one thing they didn’t plan for, though, was Jorge coming home from work sooner than scheduled…

One day, while Antonio and Pamela were consummating their affair, the woman’s husband came home and walked in on them. The bricklayer tried to hide from the furious husband, crawled under the bed and disappeared into the “love tunnel”. Unfortunately for him, Jorge started looking for him all through the house, and when he looked under his marital bed, he found the tunnel entrance.

The scorned husband crawled into the secret tunnel himself, and ended up in Antonio’s house, where the desperate bricklayer begged him to keep quiet , because his wife was in the next room and he didn’t want her to find out about his extramarital escapade. That managed to enrage Jorge even more, and the two men got into a fist fight. Seeing a strange man beating on her husband in his own home, the shocked wife called the police, and Antonio had no choice but to confess his unfaithfulness.

News and photos of the “love tunnel” were leaked on Mexican social media last week and quickly went viral. The story was covered by national and international news outlets, with Antonio drawing comparisons with drug kingpin El Chapo.