The InSight Take: Organized Crime Adopts the Latest Technologies in the Drone-IED Arms Race

Organized crime groups across Latin America are weaponizing commercial drones, pairing them with IEDs to attack rivals, security forces, and civilians. From CJNG’s drone unit in Mexico to gang warfare in Rio’s favelas and ELN surveillance drones in Colombia, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott joins Deborah Bonello to ask whether governments can actually keep pace with the threat.

Deborah: [00:00:00] So on August 17th, the US and Mexico signed what they’re calling a declaration of intent, which is deepening cooperation on drone and counter-drone technology. Washington agreed to give Mexico’s Defense Ministry access to the US Army’s digital marketplace to buy unmanned aerial systems and counter-drone equipment. And according to local reporting in Mexico, it’s the first time the Pentagon has agreed to sell drone technology to Mexico specifically for its campaign against organized crime.

Deborah: [00:00:33] So of course, the agreement doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We’ve seen the Jalisco cartel build a dedicated drone unit that has been dropping IEDs on both rivals and security forces for years now. And nationally, IED seizures in Mexico went from just three devices in 2020 to more than 1300 in 2022. In Colombia, illegal drone attacks jumped from 38 to 149 in a single year. So the question I want to dig into today is simply to ask: What is transnational organized crime looking to achieve with its use of drones and IEDs, and what are governments in the region doing to keep up?

Deborah: [00:01:16] I’m Deborah Bonello, and I’m joined by our co-director, Jeremy McDermott, for this week’s InSight Take. Jerry, thanks for doing this one.

SEE ALSO: Drones Fuel Criminal Arms Race in Latin America

Jeremy: [00:01:24] Hi, Deb. Yeah. When you mention drones, everyone thinks of Ukraine now and waves of drones, which have changed the nature of conventional warfare. But here in Latin America, we’re seeing another quieter war going on with the application of drones and sophisticated explosive capabilities. And it’s obviously our job to try and unpack all this.

Is the Use of Drones and IEDs in Latin America’s Crime Wars New?

Deborah: [00:01:51] Right. And it’s interesting you use Ukraine as a comparison. Obviously, there has been a war going on there for some time, and technically that’s not the case in Latin America. So is this use of drones and IEDs something new?

Jeremy: [00:02:08] It’s really not, Deb. It’s part of an ongoing story. And let’s put our audience in, if you like, a sequence, an evolution of events and technologies that shows that this is really just a latest incarnation of an ongoing situation. Think back to Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel. He hired experts from the Basque separatist group ETA to train cartel operatives and explosives. And he then used that knowledge to conduct terrorism in its purest sense. He set out to terrorize the Colombian public and pressure the government into making concessions, and he was victorious in the short term. He got extradition taken off the books. He built his own prison and turned himself in to this prison from where he ran the Medellín cartel. How did he do it? Yes, everyone knows about his sicarios and the targeted assassinations of politicians, judges, policemen, etc.

Jeremy: [00:03:21] But the most powerful tool he used to bring the Colombian government to its knees, essentially, was the use of explosives. And there are several emblematic attacks that members of our audience may well know about or even remember. One was the Avianca airline, where he blew up a conventional airline after it had taken off, killing 110 people on board, three people on the ground. And then he also attacked the headquarters of then Colombia’s secret police, the DAS. Massive car bomb that literally ripped the front of a, of a high-rise building. That killed 63 people and injured hundreds. And in Medellín again, he set off hundreds of IEDs.

Jeremy: [00:04:19] Let’s fast forward a little bit more. I remember covering the trial of the Colombia Three, and these were three IRA men who had come to Colombia to train the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, in explosive techniques. The guerrillas used that to build mortars, car bombs, roadside IEDs that for a time changed the tide or certainly shifted Colombia’s civil conflict. And of course, the FARC were among the biggest drug traffickers in the world at the time.

SEE ALSO: Criminal Groups Are Ramping Up Explosives in Mexico

Jeremy: [00:04:55] So I think the way to look at this, Deb, is that in pretty much every field you can think of, organized crime has used its huge resources to invest in anything that gives it an edge, an edge in protecting or facilitating its business. That may be encrypted communications, the use of lawyers, and Byzantine legal strategies. Accountants moving money around and hiding it in shell companies, computer programming, and cryptocurrency. Whatever we’re talking about today is just another facet of this. This is weaponry and military technology that transnational organized crime is using to protect its business and keep the state off its back.

How Sophisticated is Organized Crimes’s Drone Technology?

Deborah: [00:05:48] It’s interesting, you know, when you go back to the times of Escobar. Two questions, really. First, I don’t feel like we’re seeing that kind of terrorism tactic and that level of kind of public damage in today’s cartel wars that we were seeing then. Correct me if I’m wrong. And also, when we say “cartel drones,” I think people at home probably think of something fairly rudimentary. Is that still what we’re seeing in the region?

Jeremy: [00:06:18] No, it doesn’t seem to be. They and, you know, you mentioned the Jalisco cartel in Mexico, who’ve been using drones to great effect. They’re not building their own drones, Deb. So in that sense, you know, they’re not at the cutting edge of drone technology. But what they are doing is they are taking the most advanced drone technology that’s already on the market and adapting it and adapting it efficiently and with remarkable speed. So the Jalisco Cartel has actually set up, as you mentioned in your intro, a specialized drone unit. And it seems to move around because it’s been used in the states of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Baja California. And now we’re talking a lot of Mexico. It’s been dropping bombs that have damaged buildings. They’ve used it to attack police, either in fixed positions or in vehicles. They’ve even hit an Army helicopter with a combination of gunfire and a drone-borne IED. And then in April last year, there were drone attacks in Michoacan using devices with chemical substances in them: gases that cause respiratory distress in residents. This is innovative, scarily innovative use of open-source technology being applied for purely criminal ends. So no, we’re definitely not talking about bags and nails, are we?

Deborah: [00:07:58] We’re not. And I think the difference, if we can go back just momentarily to the comparison with Escobar, I think the difference is a much smaller scale use, but gradual and constant attrition on communities. And, in the context of these criminal armies that we’ve seen, rather than taking down commercial passenger jets. But of course, it’s not just happening in Mexico.

Jeremy: [00:08:26] Yeah. I mean, let’s switch back to Colombia as always, because we’ve got almost all, actually, of the major groups using drones in Colombia. But the National Liberation Army or ELN are perhaps the ones using the drones most constantly. And they seem to have made another technological leap because they’re using drones with thermal imaging, which means they can use them at night. This is for surveillance for the most part, not necessarily to deliver deliver explosives at night, although, you know, it could be used for that. And this is a guerrilla group applying what’s essentially an insurgent logic to support their territorial control. And, you know, we’ve already discussed this in a previous InSight Take, when we discussed the new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office in early August. And the use of drones by the ELN is different to Mexico. It does seem to be much more in keeping with a civil conflict, even though President de la Espriella does not recognize that Colombia is in a civil conflict. But if you want to contrast Mexico and Colombia, we see two very different uses and scales and consistencies of drones and IEDs.

SEE ALSO: National Liberation Army (ELN) Profile

Deborah: [00:10:08] And what about Brazil? Because I think we’ve been seeing not just increased use by the criminal armies there, but more of a response from the government.

Jeremy: [00:10:21] Well. Brazil has its two principal criminal armies. The first capital command, the PCC, and the Red command. And they are using drones over, particularly Rio’s infamous favelas, but also neighborhoods in in São Paulo. This seems to be more intelligence gathering. And they are using the drones as an early warning system on police operations. They’re using the drones to map police routines. There has been some weaponization there as well. There was a house hit in Rio. An explosive dropped during a dispute between the Red Command and another smaller faction, the Third Pure Command. And we’ve heard that drones have been used militarily on militia members, uh,their rivals in Rio as recently as July in a push to expand territory or contain the territorial advance of their rivals.

SEE ALSO: Mexico Drone Attacks Spike After CJNG, Familia Michoacana Alliance 

Jeremy: [00:11:40] This again, slightly different use, mainly intelligence gathering, mainly mapping and monitoring of security force patterns and routines. But we’ve seen drones used, I would say almost around the region Deb, around prisons, for example, especially around prisons, to move contraband across prison walls, to get messages in and out for gang leaders that have been incarcerated. And in Ecuador, for example, we’ve seen them using cameras, fixed cameras, along with drones, again, to control territory and to ensure they’re not surprised by security forces. So wide regional use, but the three nations that you’ve mentioned are Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil; all illustrate different focuses in terms of this, the application of this technology.

What are Governments Doing to Address Drones and Explosive Use by Criminal Groups?

Deborah: [00:12:44] That’s right. So walk us through what governments are doing to sort of respond to this. We all, we have seen a pattern of how organized crime is generally a little bit of a step ahead in terms of the way that it operates. What are you seeing in Colombia in terms of what the government is doing to face this down? Because it is a serious challenge.

Jeremy: [00:13:09] Yeah. The Colombians have the most ambition and have spent the most money or are spending the most money on this. And of course they are, whether or not you admit there’s a civil conflict or not, this is a country that is essentially at war. And so they have taken what perhaps we would describe as a more traditional war approach. They have announced and begun to implement implement almost $1.7 billion program under what they’re calling Escudo Nacional Anti-Drones, the National Anti-drone Shield, built in the military with specialized units. They’re also, as part of this strategy, looking to take out the bomb makers and drone makers in the illegal armies. And they’re going after the supply chain too, looking at drone imports, customs, postal service, the airport, etc. So they have gone quite big on this, which reflects the fact that drones are now a regular part of the Colombian battlefield. And they have set up now a permanent unit and a permanent strategy to take on the ever-growing drone threat.

Deborah: [00:14:52] Yeah. And it’s hard, really, to conceptualize amounts of money and what they can buy, but it does seem like a major initiative, and a huge amount of money to build an infrastructure for even a year or 18 months ago was a fairly marginal threat. I don’t know. What do you think?

Jeremy: [00:15:13] Yeah, I think the threat is definitely growing. And ACLED, the NGO that that charts these sort of things has seen in a year drone attacks go up from 12 to 41. And then the year before, 38 to 149. So what we are seeing is a major escalation from the military viewpoint. Deb, they’re taking casualties, and so they are taking they are looking at this as the military look at every threat. This is a change on the battlefield. They need to adapt to the changing battlefield. They need to defend their personnel, and they need to take the offensive. So, you know, this isn’t just them using drones and looking at drones from a defensive perspective. They are certainly using drones now, particularly,on the surveillance front in a much more systematic way.

SEE ALSO: Colombia’s Doubtful Progress Against Landmines

Deborah: [00:16:11] Right. And if you look at Colombia’s history, you can see how the security forces and their military strategy has evolved over the last five decades in line with its civil conflict. Whether they officially recognize it or not. Do you think they’re better placed than Mexico to get ahead of this?

Jeremy: [00:16:33] I think they’ve certainly put more emphasis on it. Deb, from a government point of view, this has been weaved into the national security strategy. So it’s not just a countercriminal initiative. This is a new and permanent element now in their military portfolio. Mexico, of course, has a slightly different level of threat, although, you know, Deb, you know this better than me being based in Mexico. After Felipe Calderón unleashed the military in Mexico in 2006, we saw an increasing militarization of the cartels. They responded in kind and developed a situation that has been described as a criminal insurgency. So while it’s not a civil conflict, there’s certainly been an increasing militarization of the cartels and thus the way they take on the security forces. And I think the drones and the IEDs are again, just another front in this ongoing military struggle. Although the Mexican cartels, for the most part in Jalisco, as always, seems to be the exception, try to avoid any kind of direct conflict with Mexico’s security forces. But the Mexicans have have different approaches. They have money. And as you just announced at the beginning, when you set this up, they’ve now got this agreement with the US. So it clearly shows that this is becoming a priority for the Mexicans as well, isn’t it?

Deborah: [00:18:26] It does. And I think the arms race began with, as we’ve documented as well, the arrival of the Zetas and just this kind of upping the ante in terms of the way that the cartels have kind of gone at it with the government. But one thing we also keep seeing, and this is something we talk about as well between us that, the state builds a response and then the criminal groups and the criminal actors just find a way around it. And we’ve seen that with the border walls, and we’ve seen that with militarization. And we’re going to see that here too.

SEE ALSO: Colombia Criminal Profile

Jeremy: [00:19:05] Well, the Mexico, while they’re not adopting the, the Colombian militarized response to drones. They are fighting this on the legal front a little, aren’t they? They’re putting legislation in place that’s pretty serious jail time for those who are convicted of building and using explosives and drones and even, I understand for surveillance because it, it shows intent and planning even on something, be it a robbery or a kidnaping. If there’s drones involved, then that’s coming with, with additional sentencing. So a different approach, Deb. One wonders how much of a deterrent this may or may not be, but it’s interesting to, you know, Mexico isn’t sitting on its hands.

Will Governments’ Anti-Drone Efforts Work?

Deborah: [00:19:59] Mhm. And you’re right. I think we are seeing different responses and efforts at least. Do you think the state efforts in the region are working or is it is it too soon to tell?

Jeremy: [00:20:16] I think the first thing, Deb, this is literally a moving target, isn’t it? We are seeing not only drone technology take increasing leaps forward. We’re seeing drone availability becoming commonplace, and we’re seeing drones being used by businesses like Amazon, has got pilot projects, hasn’t it, you know, to use drones to deliver parcels in parts of the US. So, you know, this is, like AI and like so many other technologies; this is something that has got a life of its own. And I think what the criminals are doing is they are looking at this ever-changing landscape and going, can I use this? And how can I use this?

Jeremy: [00:21:12] And of course, for them, resources are not really an issue. You can buy one of the bigger drones, more powerful drones for a thousand bucks commercially. And then, you know, they can use that platform to adapt to a variety of different things, whether they wish to put thermal imaging on it and use it as a surveillance drone, or whether they want to strap explosives to it and turn it into a weapon. Knowledge transfer is increasingly easy. You don’t have to go and spend a year in Ukraine’s trenches. Now, Deb, to learn how to build, adapt, and employ drone technology, you’ve just got to go to YouTube. 

SEE ALSO: The InSight Take: The Shield of the Americas Grows, But Does it Have a Strategy?

Deborah: [00:22:03] Yeah, I mean, it’s the state of play today really, isn’t it? And so we’ve got these three governments, three quite different ways of going at the problem. And in every single one we’re seeing, we’re seeing that adaptation. How optimistic do you feel about the future of the use of this tech in our regions’ criminal wars?

Jeremy: [00:22:33] I know I always come across as a purveyor of doom, slightly Deb in these conversations. It’s hard to be optimistic. And what we’re seeing with the drone technology is it’s not just the Jaliscos and the ELN, the big groups that are using this. This is spreading. This is becoming commonplace for much smaller groups in Mexico. The Carteles Unidos now have a proven record. Ardillos. So I think the bar to entry in using drones is little more than an Amazon account and access to YouTube. So this is being used  by not necessarily particularly sophisticated criminal groups. And it’s not part of a wider national strategy to take on the state. This is being used by small gangs to protect themselves and their territory. And it’s just spreading, the use is just spreading everywhere, which of course makes it harder and harder for the Colombians, the Brazilians, the Mexicans to keep up.

Jeremy: [00:23:59] You know, it’s one of those things. You suddenly ban all use of drones because that’s really the only way you could even begin to make a dent in the use of drones by organized crime, which is saying, okay, we’re going to criminalize drones. And of course, there are too many legitimate uses for drones. And businesses are continuing to explore it, legal businesses. So I suspect the state, as always, has got one hand tied behind its back before it even really begins to try and take this on. So I suspect that we can’t even talk about containing the problem, let alone dismantling the increasing drone IED infrastructure that particularly the sophisticated guys are building in-house and deploying with accuracy and consistency.

Deborah: [00:25:00] So to zoom out a little bit, because we have talked quite a lot this year about the Shield of the Americas strategy, this as we said last week, very sweeping, but kind of lacking in specifics,rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration. And which, you know, a lot of countries in the region are saddling up for. And of course, we’ve seen the SOUTHCOM strikes on boats. Ecuador’s alliances with, with the Trump administration and increasingly Colombia’s Abelardo getting on board with shield of the Americas. Does a program like the Escudo Nacional anti-drones, or the new kind of rules in Mexico against procurement and legal penalties? Do you see that as being sort of local versions of that bigger plan, or do you think this is something that each country is doing a little bit more independently, but with a sort of more specific target than just, bombing go-fast boats.

SEE ALSO: The InSight Take: Abelardo de la Espriella Inherits Colombia’s Fractured Criminal Landscape

Jeremy: [00:26:11] I think that it’s useful for Washington to use the Shield of America’s initiative to essentially share a menu of options, mainly military options, obviously, because that’s what’s in their toolbox. And so look, here’s technology, if you guys need it, here is our experience.H ere are a variety of strategies using the military that one can employ to help you guys contain and confront this new face of the technological war that you have from your various different organized crime groups. So long as you’re not presenting it as this is the only way you’re going to be able to take it. As we’ve said before, you can think of perhaps some of Colombia’s armed groups, the Gaitanistas or Clan del Golfo, they’ve got 10,000 members. The National Liberationists got 7000, FARC dissidents roughly the same. These are paramilitary structures, you know, particularly the ELN. And you can tackle them on some fronts through a military lens. But the Mexico and almost 95% of organized crime groups aren’t wandering around in uniform. They aren’t based in military camps. These are civilians dressed in civilian clothing, literally coming out of nowhere with a drone, usually off the back of a motorbike. They’ll deploy the drone, whatever it might be. And then they’ll be gone. This is not his is not something that lends itself to a military strategy. And indeed, it’s probably counterproductive to make this the basis of your strategy to take on drones and, and IEDs.

Jeremy: [00:28:27] That one has to remember that IEDs have traditionally been deployed against, guess who? The military and the police. So the more you use the military and the police in sustained operations, the more they’re going to use IEDs because they know, oh, God, the police are going to be down here, or the military are going to be down here in an armored vehicle or in a Land Rover or in a pickup truck. You know, let’s leave a surprise for them here. And we see the collateral damage. We see the wider use of this this military style conflict. So my hesitation isn’t, “o, this is completely the wrong approach.” This is: Okay. It’s always good that everybody’s working together. It’s always good that the US is sharing technology strategy and intelligence. But can we please, in the case of this particular problem, as with so many of the other problems we’ve discussed, can we make this more than just military? Can we look at the political, social, economic aspects? Can we look at social media where these guys learn about drones, recruit drone operators, whatever it is, I know we increasingly sound like a scratched record on this, Debm but we come back to the military being a blunt tool that in terms of fighting against transnational organized crime, may have some short-term tactical victories, but is absolutely not going to win the war, and it’s not even going to win the war on drones. 

Deborah: [00:30:05] I think there is a lot of repetition in our work, but it warrants saying, and I think what I’m hearing is that even if Colombia’s Anti-drone strategy works as designed and Mexico, you know, prosecutes all of its drone workers and Brazil keeps on with a local focus, it’s just one front on which this clash is taking place between organized crime and governments. And attacking the drones doesn’t really get to why the groups have the money and the territorial control to run those drone programs in the first place.

SEE ALSO: On the Radar: US Eyes Ground War Against Crime

Jeremy: [00:30:44] Yeah. I mean, first of all, we’re not going to win the drone war with transnational organized crime. And secondly, even if we did, is this moving the dial on fighting transnational organized crime? Or is this simply neutralizing or mitigating just one of the bounteous tools they use to protect and facilitate their business? So let’s get to the cause and not think that winning one aspect of the tactical fight is really going to going to shift the dynamics.

Deborah: [00:31:23] Yeah, it’s a good but uncomfortable place to leave it, don’t you think?

Jeremy: [00:31:29] Always.

Deborah: [00:31:29] Yeah. Thanks. Jerry for joining us. You’ve just watched The Insight Take, our weekly video analysis of the region’s biggest organized crime stories. You can find it on our website, in the multimedia section, as well as on YouTube and Spotify. And if there’s a story or subject you’d really like us to get hold of, you can reach out to me at [email protected]. We’ll be back with another InSight take next week. Bye for now.