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06/11/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/11/2025 14:39

Illicit Innovation: Latin America Is Not Prepared to Fight Criminal Drones

Illicit Innovation: Latin America Is Not Prepared to Fight Criminal Drones

Photo: MARCOS PIN/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary by Henry Ziemer

Published June 11, 2025

The scene is by now all too familiar for those acquainted with coverage of modern war. A bird's-eye view frames two figures ambling about below, then charts the path of an improvised explosive charge as it tumbles down, impacting with a puff of smoke and an explosion that is felt, not heard, through the camera feed, sending the two figures scrambling for cover. But this episode does not come from the trenches of eastern Ukraine, nor the urban devastation of Syria or Gaza. It is of a clash between rival transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) taking place in Mexico, and is just one of dozens like it showcasing how criminals have rapidly taken to the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) to supplement their operations.

The adoption of drones by TCOs is the latest example of how powerful criminal networks often borrow from military and insurgent tactics to challenge the state. Mexico, for instance, has seen the rise of so-called narcotanques, monstruos (monsters), or, more technically, Improvised Armored Fighting Vehicles-up-armored civilian trucks and cars sporting heavy weaponry and often used to spearhead cartel assaults. In the case of drones however, TCOs may find even more uses for cheap commercial UASs than the conventional soldiers on both sides of the war in Ukraine.

Like in armed combat, drones offer TCOs a cheap, expendable, and easy-to-use precision strike capability. Drones carrying explosives can be used to observe, target, and attack enemies in dense urban agglomerations where reliance on human eyes can be limited and dangerous. Another important use for drones seen both on and off the battlefield is in providing situational awareness and persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). For instance, in one 2019 case, a drone was used to monitor U.S. Customs and Border Protection activities along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, tracking their movements to determine the most opportune time for evading patrols. Finally, drones can help deliver illicit goods across borders quickly and evade physical obstacles that would otherwise slow down human drug mules. In February 2024, General Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, estimated that there are over 1,000 drone incursions along the United States' southern border each month. While many of these are likely civilian hobbyists or other benign incidents, cases of drones passing drugs into border states have been documented over the past decade, especially at night, when the ability of law enforcement to detect these is even more limited.

The aftermath of Ukraine's masterful "Operation Spider's Web," where covertly deployed drones succeeded in destroying tens of Russian strategic bombers on the ground, has brought renewed calls to secure strategic infrastructure from drone incursions. Today, Latin American countries face comparatively less sophisticated drone threats, but the prevalence of organized crime and its dispersed nature means these may be even more difficult to defend against.

Criminal Tactical Diffusion

With the rapid adoption of drone warfare by militaries and insurgent groups, the question of when UASs would see widespread use by criminals was a matter of "when," not "if." In Latin America and the Caribbean especially, the presence of powerful, wealthy, and deeply entrenched TCOs means that these groups are continually searching for ways of threatening the state and attacking their opponents. What has been notable is the speed with which drones have made their way into the arsenal as commercial UASs have grown cheaper and more efficient. Two countries in the region perhaps best embody this changing paradigm of illicit drone use-Mexico and Colombia.

One of the first documented instances of a weaponized drone in Mexico was in October 2017, when a commercial quadcopter armed with an improvised explosive was seized during a traffic stop. Since then, drone attacks have proliferated at an alarming rate in Mexico. According to the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), there were just 5 drone attacks in 2020, while the next year there were 107; in 2022, this number more than doubled to 233. In just the first half of 2023, SEDENA reported 260 drone attacks.

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG) has been a particularly prolific adopter, using weaponized drones against rival armed groups since at least 2020, and boasting a dedicated "Drone Operators" unit complete with custom insignia. Cartel drone attacks in Mexico typically rely on quadcopters rigged with explosive payloads that they can drop while hovering over targets. Groups generally prefer military-grade explosives like hand grenades, but seizures by Mexican authorities have revealed a host of custom-made drone drop munitions (including specialized chemical payloads). Then, in April, a video uploaded to social media appeared to show the first confirmed use of a first-person view (FPV) drone by a cartel. Once again, the CJNG was cited as its operator, and potentially the instigator of a new phase in Mexico's drone war. Unlike drone-dropped munitions, weaponized FPV drones typically employ an explosive attached to the drone that is detonated on contact with the target. This allows for an even greater degree of precision targeting, including flying through obstacles and into buildings. While the April incident appears something of an outlier (and notably the drone itself failed to achieve its mission), it indicates that Mexican TCOs are continuing to experiment and innovate with new weaponized drone tactics.

The employment of drones in Mexico's cartel wars has seemingly reached the point where TCOs have begun to invest in their own countermeasures. A member of the Mayito Flaco faction of the Sinaloa Cartel has been photographed carrying a SkyFend counter-UAS jammer, a system with a retail price of approximately $100,000. While the level of sophistication of these units likely leaves much to be desired, their existence suggests that TCOs are innovating at a rapid pace in their search for new ways to defeat rivals and preserve their illicit revenues.

Colombia is even more of a newcomer to the UAS battlefield than Mexico. The country reported its first lethal drone attack, which killed a 10-year-old boy, in July 2024. Based on data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), drone attacks have been responsible for at least 11 deaths in the first five months of 2025. The primary perpetrators of these attacks have been insurgent members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), which since early 2025 has launched a major offensive in the Catatumbo region of the country. The mere knowledge that an armed group has access to weaponized drones activity is likely already reshaping how Colombia will structure its military operations against the ELN. Units will be unwilling to maneuver without drone countermeasures, while drones can provide armed groups with new ISR capabilities to observe troop movements and force dispositions.

Drones can also offer nonstate groups a new tool to hinder state forces' mobility. In Myanmar, rebels allegedly used an FPV drone to take down an Mi-17 transport helicopter. Latin American militaries rely heavily on rotorcraft (including Mi-17s) to surge forces quickly to otherwise inaccessible regions. To date, nonstate groups have had limited air defenses, often relying on high-powered rifles as improvised anti-air guns. UASs provide a new vector for these groups to target government helicopters and potentially even hold at risk civilian aviation.

While rebel groups may use drones as a weapon of war against Colombian police and military forces, the effects of rising UAS attacks fall disproportionately on civilians. The result is a climate of fear and confusion among local communities and has likely played a not-insignificant role in the displacement of more than 54,000 people from their homes in Catatumbo. Meanwhile on June 10, another rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army, disseminated notices to residents of Cauca and Valle del Cauca warning civilians to avoid military bases and police stations due to be targeted by explosive drones. In both Mexico and Colombia, the actual death toll of drone attacks remains far below that exacted by conventional firearms. Instead, nonstate armed groups rely on drones to instill a pervasive atmosphere of fear and intimidation. In the states of Guerrero and Michoacán, for instance, journalist Ioan Grillo notes that the "attacks come unannounced at anytime and villagers flee their homes in fear." In 2023, some 600 residents of the town of Nuevo Caracol, Guerrero, were reportedly displaced amid constant drone attacks. Mexico, for instance, has taken steps to regulate the use of drones, requiring that any UAS weighing more than 250 grams be registered with the government and seeking to create steep penalties for modifying drones to carry explosive devices or drugs, but without making tangible progress in the fight against organized crime, such efforts risk amounting to little more than political posturing.

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Henry Ziemer

Associate Fellow, Americas Program

Programs & Projects

  • Americas Program
  • Geopolitics and Foreign Policy
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Bringing a Knife to a Drone Fight

Drones provide nonstate groups with a major asymmetric advantage against their government adversaries. While TCOs can construct rudimentary unmanned bombers using off-the-shelf drones and home-made explosives, Latin American militaries remain seriously underprepared to deal with the threat of small UASs. This is to say nothing of the region's police forces, which lag far behind in their adoption of countermeasures like air defense or electronic warfare and jammers used by armed forces to deny their airspace to drones. Indeed, it is telling that Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, was himself almost assassinated by a pair of explosive-toting drones in 2018.

The challenge of counter-UAS operations in Latin America is also deeply entwined with broader state capacity issues in the region. In Mexico, large areas of the country are reportedly under TCO control where the government has limited capacity to patrol to detect illicit drone activity. Similarly, the Amazon Rainforest in South America has long been a haven for nonstate armed groups to evade detection and husband weapons and ammunition beyond the reach of the state. Even if the region's militaries can harden their bases and critical infrastructure against drone attacks, this means little for the communities facing UAS-dropped bombs as a tool of extortion and intimidation. Solving for criminal drone attacks will therefore require steps to address the resurgence of organized crime in the region as a whole.

Latin America's security forces are only now beginning to wake up to the potential for mass disruption caused by criminal drone use. Several countries, including Colombia, Peru, and Mexico, have begun procuring anti-drone equipment for their militaries. Colombia recently purchased $25 million worth of anti-drone systems from the U.S. company Dedrone Tactical to protect its military bases, and counter-UAS companies have made impressive showings at recent regional defense expos. The Brazilian Army also recently tested an indigenously produced active electronically scanned radar specializing in detecting low-observable threats like artillery and mortar fire as well as small UASs.

But acquiring more systems does not necessarily mean these will be deployed where they are most needed, nor that Latin American countries can expect to achieve full coverage of sensitive areas such as military bases, airports, power stations, and stadiums. Policy debates within the United States are instructive in this regard. While popular opinion is largely supportive of using military capabilities to counter UASs at strategic locations, widespread adoption of anti-drone technology remains a thorny subject. Blanketing rural Mexico or Colombia in jammers and electronic warfare would not only be cost-prohibitive, it would disrupt civilian communications, interfere with air travel, and potentially further ensconce the communities there on the wrong side of the digital divide. Even providing more accessible anti-drone kit to police forces could lead to regulatory and jurisdictional headaches over when and where police can restrict the electromagnetic spectrum. More widespread counter-UAS systems also increases the likelihood that some of these would be diverted into the hands of TCOs.

Alternatively, embattled governments have turned to drones as a tool against ascendant TCOs. In Haiti, recent reports have found that the transitional government has employed drones against gangs in the capital of Port-au-Prince. In one day of operations, drones allegedly inflicted 80 casualties, though the gang affiliation of the victims could not be independently verified. However, employing drones without hardening counter UAS defenses is a double-edged sword as the armed groups targeted can often respond in kind. In Haiti, gang leader Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier condemned the use of drones against his gang, claiming that he could employ them as well "to kill anyone in the country." His threat is not an empty one-Haiti's gangs have used drones in the past in order to combat the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Force and likely have several stockpiled.

While countries can and should revise their military doctrine to account for the transformational role UASs are playing on modern battlefields, seeking to beat TCOs at their own game is an imperfect solution. New and innovative strategies are urgently needed to secure the Western Hemisphere from the menace of illicit drones.

Securing the Skies

Target Supply Chains, Not Shooters: One of the key vulnerabilities TCOs face in their ability to employ UASs is their lack of a manufacturing base. This means that most nonstate armed groups are reliant on commercially available drones that they can repurpose for illicit use. If the supply of drones to TCOs can be restricted, it should be easier to defeat the remaining systems these groups possess. However, unlike firearms trafficking, there is a relatively nascent understanding of where groups are procuring their drones from (though a likely contender is China, home to the company DJI, which dominates the commercial drone industry with some 70 percent of the global market share). More intelligence is needed to understand whether TCOs are purchasing these drones directly or relying on smugglers or third parties to obtain them. To this end, the United States and its partners in the region can exploit this fact to understand where criminals are obtaining their drones and target these supply chains. Penetrating criminal drone supply chains can also open up a treasure trove of intelligence if governments are able to covertly introduce tracking equipment to drones destined for TCOs.

Learn from the Experts: Criminals may appear to be on the leading edge of drone innovation today in Latin America, but it need not stay that way forever. Conflicts around the world, particularly in Ukraine, have driven UAS and counter-UAS innovation forward at a breakneck pace, and helped develop a cadre of practitioners well versed in these new systems. Latin American governments would do well to engage these individuals to learn from their experiences, and use them to devise new approaches. Ukraine in particular can be a vital ally helping the Western Hemisphere shore up its drone defense. For a region that has been reticent to align with the Ukrainian cause, sharing its counter-UAS expertise could be a vector for Kyiv to forge new diplomatic inroads in Latin America.

Invest in Training and Tactics: As Latin American security forces incorporate both drones and counter-drone technology, they will need to adapt their force structure accordingly. Police and militaries in the region should train regularly with drones, as well as train to counter drone-equipped adversaries. From the military perspective, this means quickly rolling out drone and counter-drone systems at the company and platoon level to improve familiarity with these tools. U.S. Southern Command can assist these efforts by emphasizing drone and counter-drone operations in its multilateral exercises. Meanwhile, in addition to familiarizing themselves with criminal UAS tactics, police forces should strive to build up intelligence and investigative capabilities to detect and prevent drone attacks before they occur.

Henry Ziemer is an associate fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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