We’ve discussed previously the growing sophistication of cash-flush Mexican cartels and how they are exploiting our porous southern border with high-tech equipment. Today we get from Judicial Watch some understanding of the magnitude of the cartels’ activities.
On a recent visit to the border, Judicial Watch reporters met with Border Patrol officials who told them that “Mexican drug cartels have conducted more than 9,000 drone flights into U.S. airspace in the last year.” According to CBP:
Specifically, [the flights]help identify gaps in border coverage and assist the cartels in overwhelming certain areas to create a diversion for moving sensitive or high value loads through alternate border locations.
According to Brandon Judd, the president of the Border Patrol union, drones are also being used to smuggle drugs into the U.S. “They are dropping fentanyl,” Judd said. “They fly into certain locations, drop them to the ground and fentanyl is taken off of them and they take back off into Mexico.”
There are also reports of some drones being weaponized. A Mexican newspaper reported last year that some cartels, including Jalisco Nueva Generación, used “drones with explosives to attack [Mexican] police.” The above photograph shows a drone outfitted with fragmentation grenades that was deliberately crashed into a policeman’s home in 2018.
The Border Patrol has captured about a dozen cartel drones and has analyzed their guidance and memory systems to learn more.
For more, see Judicial Watch.