Mexican Drug Cartels Now 'Using Consumer Drones Laden With Explosives'

Mexican drug cartels are now using consumer drones laden with explosives, according to reports from local media.

Outlets including El Universal report that a citizens' militia group in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán - formed to protect farmers from the cartel - found two drones in a car used by gunmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or CJNG) who are thought to control a third of the drugs consumed in the United States.

According to Forbes, these drones were discovered with plastic containers taped to them, which had been filled with C4 explosive and ball bearing shrapnel.

The militias say they have heard explosions, and now believe the drones are being used as the latest weapons in the country's gang war.

They appeared to be 'wired for remote detonation in kamikaze attacks', Forbes said.

Mexican Federal Police

Local reports added that three other CJNG drones packed with explosives were seized earlier in the year, and in 2018 a similar armed device was used to attack a senior Mexican official at his home Baja, California.

In 2017, four cartel members were also arrested carrying a type of improvised hand grenade known as a papa bomba (potato bomb).

Analyst Dr. Robert J. Bunker, Director of Research and Analysis at C/O Futures, LLC, told Forbes: "The CJNG has been involved with such devices since late 2017 in various regions of Mexico."

He continued: "This cartel is well on its way to institutionalizing the use of weaponized drones. None of the other cartels appear to presently even be experimenting with the weaponization of these devices."

Bunker said that suitable consumer drones are now easy to acquire and use, but weaponising them remains a challenge.

Mexcian Federal Police

"The limiting factor is not so much the availability of military grade explosives - commercial or homemade explosives can be substituted - but the basic technical knowledge necessary to create improvised explosive devices or IEDs," he explained.

The drones discovered recently were reportedly similar to the armed'quadcopter' used in the failed assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro 2018.

However, they are said to be less sophisticated than the bomber drones used by ISIS and others groups in the Middle East, with the belief that Mexican cartels may not have access to munitions that can be adapted for drone attacks.

"Improvised drone bomb designs for terrorist and criminal organizations are still relatively unsophisticated from a nation-state and future potentials perspective," Bunker added.

"This is due to both the lack of technical sophistication of their bomb makers and the lack of computer, data/signals, and command and control expertise of their pilots."

Topics: World News, News, Mexico

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

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