LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It began as a routine operation: Mexican police were clearing blockades placed by organized crime groups in El Aguaje, a western Mexico town that has become a battleground for drug cartels.
Suddenly, authorities said, a drone flew over, dropping a gunpowder bomb and wounding two members of the Michoacán state police force in the arms and legs.
The attack in April underscored an emerging danger in the international fight against illegal drugs – weaponized drones.
The bloody and powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, and its rival Cárteles Unidos have upgraded their arsenals, using drones to bomb enemies, posing a growing threat to Mexican and U.S. citizens and allowing more drugs to flow into the USA.
Drones are part of the cartels' larger strategy to arm themselves like rogue militaries.
"I've been a strong advocate of designating the Mexican cartels as terrorist groups because they're acting like terrorist groups. They're equipped like terrorist groups. They're distributing record levels of poisonous drugs in America," said Derek Maltz, a former agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division.
"They're going to use the latest and greatest technology" to defeat adversaries in Mexico, go after police and fight for territory that gives them better routes to funnel drugs into the USA, he said.
In an exclusive interview with The Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, one rookie drone operator with Cárteles Unidos, who did not want to give his name, given the cartel’s criminal activities, said his organization has about 100 drones. Cartel members receive training on their use, he said, from a man nicknamed "Lord of the Skies."
“He's been training us since last year,” the cartel member said. “We have many drone models. They're not too sophisticated but can carry a considerable amount of explosives."
He said the drones “come legally from the U.S.” through “groups in Michoacán that support us and have legit money to buy the drones."
The man said Cárteles Unidos deploys drones to keep watch over territory and attack CJNG. He said neither his organization nor CJNG uses drones for trafficking drugs because it's not worth the money or effort; drones are an inefficient way to carry the large volume of drugs CJNG exports to the USA.
CJNG – which is known for kidnappings, torture and murders in Mexico and the USA – is blamed for the spread of fentanyl, one of America's deadliest illicit drugs.
CJNG and other Mexican cartels make fentanyl in clandestine laboratories and produce and traffic “the overwhelming majority of the heroin available in the United States,” according to the DEA’s 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment.
Mexican Secretary of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval blamed CJNG for the drone attack against police in April and said the person who used the drone was arrested.
Aguililla, the municipality containing El Aguaje where the attack occurred, has become a strategic hub for the production of methamphetamine. It’s the birthplace of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as "El Mencho," suspected of being the most powerful drug lord in Mexico and leader of CJNG.
Shortly after the attack, The Associated Press reported, Papal Nuncio Monsignor Franco Coppola visited Aguililla, offering a Mass for residents and walking through the streets with an image of Christ "to symbolically reclaim roadways where dozens of bodies – some decapitated – have been left in recent months."
The drone attack in El Aguaje was one of many in the past few years. CJNG has been blamed for many attacks in Tepalcatepec in the Michoacán state and one in Baja California, a Mexican state bordering the USA where the cartel targeted the house of Public Security Secretary Gerardo Manuel Sosa Olachea.
During a briefing in Mexico City, Sandoval said such attacks are concerning but “haven’t been as effective” as the cartels would like. He said the drones they use can’t carry enough explosives to seriously harm a person or destroy a building.
Authorities are concerned cartels could get hold of more deadly devices. They worry cartels may step up efforts to smuggle drugs across the border with drones; they say some use this tactic to bring marijuana and other drugs into the USA.
In the academic journal International Studies Perspective in 2018, researchers cited an expert who said cartels use drones to look for Border Patrol agents and inform drug smugglers of their positions.
As drones proliferate among cartels, public safety officials in Mexico try to curb their use. The office of Mexico's attorney general has launched several investigations into terrorism by organized crime and seized drones and C-4 explosives, which are commonly used in drone attacks.
Experts in Mexico and the USA worry more militarized cartels will mean more casualties in both countries, a more difficult battle for law enforcement and more drugs on American streets.
Last month, government officials from both nations held talks at Mexico City's Foreign Ministry to discuss a new joint security policy. A statement released by the Foreign Ministry said, “Mexico and the United States reaffirm the commitment to work together against transnational organized crime.”
The ministry said the two countries’ priorities include reducing arms, narcotics trafficking and violence caused by organized crime; addressing addiction as a public health problem; and attacking the finances of criminal organizations that operate in the two countries.
Judging by history, none of this will be easy.
Over the years, various strategies against organized crime have been implemented in Mexico with no success. The so-called war on drugs led to tens of thousands of deaths. Cartels grew stronger and better able to fuel America’s drug epidemic.
And that epidemic kept taking more lives.
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Suddenly, authorities said, a drone flew over, dropping a gunpowder bomb and wounding two members of the Michoacán state police force in the arms and legs.
The attack in April underscored an emerging danger in the international fight against illegal drugs – weaponized drones.
The bloody and powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, and its rival Cárteles Unidos have upgraded their arsenals, using drones to bomb enemies, posing a growing threat to Mexican and U.S. citizens and allowing more drugs to flow into the USA.
Drones are part of the cartels' larger strategy to arm themselves like rogue militaries.
"I've been a strong advocate of designating the Mexican cartels as terrorist groups because they're acting like terrorist groups. They're equipped like terrorist groups. They're distributing record levels of poisonous drugs in America," said Derek Maltz, a former agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division.
"They're going to use the latest and greatest technology" to defeat adversaries in Mexico, go after police and fight for territory that gives them better routes to funnel drugs into the USA, he said.
In an exclusive interview with The Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, one rookie drone operator with Cárteles Unidos, who did not want to give his name, given the cartel’s criminal activities, said his organization has about 100 drones. Cartel members receive training on their use, he said, from a man nicknamed "Lord of the Skies."
“He's been training us since last year,” the cartel member said. “We have many drone models. They're not too sophisticated but can carry a considerable amount of explosives."
He said the drones “come legally from the U.S.” through “groups in Michoacán that support us and have legit money to buy the drones."
The man said Cárteles Unidos deploys drones to keep watch over territory and attack CJNG. He said neither his organization nor CJNG uses drones for trafficking drugs because it's not worth the money or effort; drones are an inefficient way to carry the large volume of drugs CJNG exports to the USA.
CJNG – which is known for kidnappings, torture and murders in Mexico and the USA – is blamed for the spread of fentanyl, one of America's deadliest illicit drugs.
CJNG and other Mexican cartels make fentanyl in clandestine laboratories and produce and traffic “the overwhelming majority of the heroin available in the United States,” according to the DEA’s 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment.
Mexican Secretary of Defense Luis Cresencio Sandoval blamed CJNG for the drone attack against police in April and said the person who used the drone was arrested.
Aguililla, the municipality containing El Aguaje where the attack occurred, has become a strategic hub for the production of methamphetamine. It’s the birthplace of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as "El Mencho," suspected of being the most powerful drug lord in Mexico and leader of CJNG.
Shortly after the attack, The Associated Press reported, Papal Nuncio Monsignor Franco Coppola visited Aguililla, offering a Mass for residents and walking through the streets with an image of Christ "to symbolically reclaim roadways where dozens of bodies – some decapitated – have been left in recent months."
The drone attack in El Aguaje was one of many in the past few years. CJNG has been blamed for many attacks in Tepalcatepec in the Michoacán state and one in Baja California, a Mexican state bordering the USA where the cartel targeted the house of Public Security Secretary Gerardo Manuel Sosa Olachea.
During a briefing in Mexico City, Sandoval said such attacks are concerning but “haven’t been as effective” as the cartels would like. He said the drones they use can’t carry enough explosives to seriously harm a person or destroy a building.
Authorities are concerned cartels could get hold of more deadly devices. They worry cartels may step up efforts to smuggle drugs across the border with drones; they say some use this tactic to bring marijuana and other drugs into the USA.
In the academic journal International Studies Perspective in 2018, researchers cited an expert who said cartels use drones to look for Border Patrol agents and inform drug smugglers of their positions.
As drones proliferate among cartels, public safety officials in Mexico try to curb their use. The office of Mexico's attorney general has launched several investigations into terrorism by organized crime and seized drones and C-4 explosives, which are commonly used in drone attacks.
Experts in Mexico and the USA worry more militarized cartels will mean more casualties in both countries, a more difficult battle for law enforcement and more drugs on American streets.
Last month, government officials from both nations held talks at Mexico City's Foreign Ministry to discuss a new joint security policy. A statement released by the Foreign Ministry said, “Mexico and the United States reaffirm the commitment to work together against transnational organized crime.”
The ministry said the two countries’ priorities include reducing arms, narcotics trafficking and violence caused by organized crime; addressing addiction as a public health problem; and attacking the finances of criminal organizations that operate in the two countries.
Judging by history, none of this will be easy.
Over the years, various strategies against organized crime have been implemented in Mexico with no success. The so-called war on drugs led to tens of thousands of deaths. Cartels grew stronger and better able to fuel America’s drug epidemic.
And that epidemic kept taking more lives.
Drug cartels attack enemies and spread terror with weaponized drones in US, Mexico
Like rogue militaries, Mexican drug cartels have upgraded their arsenals with weaponized drones that pose a growing threat in Mexico and the U.S.
