How Mexican cartels use drones as tools to smuggle drugs and fight enemies

mexico city — the Temporary closure of airspace over El Paso, Texason Wednesday raised concerns south of the US-Mexico border and highlighted the use of drones by Mexican cartels.

Criminal groups have used technology to modernize their operations, smuggling fentanyl, organizing migrant border crossings, monitoring territory, and waging war on rival cartels and Mexican authorities.

US officials initially said the airspace was closed to prevent incursion by the Mexican cartel’s drones Others familiar with the situation later questioned this interpretation.

Gangs are using drones almost daily to move drugs across the border and monitor Border Patrol agents, Stephen Willoughby, deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security’s counter-drone program, told Congress in July.

According to their data, more than 27,000 drones were detected in the last six months of 2024 within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the southern border of the United States, especially at night.

Here’s what you need to know:

Drug smuggling by air is nothing new and is linked to the history of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

In the 1990s, drug trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes, founder of the Juarez cartel, specialized in transporting large drug shipments in small planes, earning him the nickname “Lord of Heaven.”

When he died under suspicious circumstances after a botched plastic surgery procedure in 1997, his brothers and sons continued to work out of Ciudad Juarez.

Fifteen years later, when his brother Vicente was arrested – Vicente was sent from Mexico to the United States last year It is estimated that 70% of the cocaine entering the United States comes through Juarez.

Mexico issued an international alert in 2010 about drug traffickers’ use of remotely piloted aircraft systems, and the practice has been on the rise since then.

Between 2012 and 2014, US authorities detected 150 drone systems crossing the border with Mexico. A decade later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 10,000 incursions in the Rio Grande Valley region of south Texas alone, according to data from the International Narcotics Control Board.

Over time, the drugs flowing into the United States were also changing, shifting from heavy bales of marijuana to more compact synthetics like methamphetamine and fentanyl that could be carried by drones.

In 2021, the Mexican government began submitting public reports Using explosive drones to attack security forces.

At the time, this was a tactic of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) that had been discovered in the states of Michoacan, Guanajuato and Jalisco.

The military said at the time that the drones were not as effective as criminals wanted because they could only carry small explosive devices, which were sometimes attached to the drone.

The use of drones has spread to almost all criminal groups, and according to Mexican authorities, they are being used to launch attacks, surveillance, and even transmit images in real time.

In states such as Michoacán, both commercial drones and larger agricultural aircraft with a diameter of about a meter (3.3 feet) are being used; Instead of machine guns, they are equipped with adapters for explosives, according to data from that state’s government.

In 2025, the International Narcotics Control Board reported that gangs were increasingly using this method to smuggle fentanyl, sometimes using homemade drones capable of carrying up to 100 kilograms (220.46 lb) of cargo, because with new satellite technologies, traffickers can pre-program precise landing sites and reduce risks in deliveries.

So did the Mexican government They use drones for their own purposesTo combat cartels and monitor migrant convoys in 2018 and 2019. Specialized anti-drone equipment was also used to respond in the states.

The military operates such systems along the border that divides Sinaloa, Jalisco and Michoacan, primarily, although the latter state has its own unit dedicated to the work.

Last July, the southern state of Chiapas took another step forward, announcing Purchasing a fleet of armed drones To fight the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels that were fighting for control of the southern border of Mexico.

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